


Ohio Is For Pete and Patrick

by FlashFlashFlash



Series: Ohio Is For Pete and Patrick [1]
Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Babies, Bandom Big Bang 2018, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Miscarriage Scare, Morning Sickness, Mpreg, Talk of Abortion, Teenage Pregnancy, Van Days, Young Parents, graphic (ish) depiction of birth, ohio is for lovers, pregnant!patrick, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-08-30 01:56:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16755661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlashFlashFlash/pseuds/FlashFlashFlash
Summary: It's autumn 2002, and for just over a year, Fall Out Boy have been working on making it very clear that Pete and Patrick aren't together. They just aren't. It's what they do. They're PeteAndPatrick, music-making dream team, best friends, confidants, lovers, but they're not together- they're not a couple. The thing is, they have fully accepted their non-couple status, they're completely comfortable with it, and it seems as if nothing can change that. This is, of course, until something does just that. Patrick is pregnant, Pete is self-obsessed, Joe is pissed off, and Andy- poor Andy just wants someone else to take the night shift driving between venues once or twice.





	Ohio Is For Pete and Patrick

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there! Sorry for the long silence, but we're back in business, kicking off the new FOB era with a bang- a Bandom Big Bang, in fact! (Sorry, was that super cheesy?) 
> 
> Make sure to check out the awesome complement fanwork by chibifukurou HERE:  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> You can also check out their work on a post I made to my tumblr (spearminitvy). Please send lots of love!
> 
> I worked pretty hard on this so please give it a little love. Also, let me know what you want more of down in the comments... 
> 
> Aminta x

“So, what's the deal with you and Wentz these days?" 

"There is no deal," Patrick responds lazily to Andy, zipping up his hoodie and stuffing his hands into his pockets. They've been waiting for Joe to bring the van back from the gas station for all of thirty seconds, and, by the tone of Patrick's voice, it wouldn't be difficult for any bystander to tell that this was about to be a long and incredibly difficult conversation. "We're just friends, okay?"

"Dude, I saw you crying last night, and I just wanted to check that you were okay with Pete and that Jeanae girl," Andy explains, extending an arm to give Patrick's shoulder a slow rub. "That he wasn't fucking you over or anything."

"Why would he be fucking me over? We're not an item, and we never have been." Patrick jerks himself away from Andy's touch defensively. "I don't care who he has sex with." The glare that Andy receives suggests strongly otherwise. 

"Unless it's you that he's having sex with, of course."

"I never had sex with Pete, Andy. I kissed him one time when I was drunk and he was high. It was hardly very romantic." The air is tense in their discussion, heating up with implications and unspoken accusations. Patrick would punch Andy if he weren't such a good drummer. 

"I'm just saying, you might be cute together, that's all." Andy tries his luck again with the shoulder rubbing, and this time he's successful. "You were clearly upset, dude. I'm just looking out for you, okay?" 

"I just miss my mom, maybe I'm tired, or something. I’m way younger than you, maybe I still have attachment issues." When Andy raises his eyebrows sceptically, Patrick groans and rolls his eyes. "Chill out. It’s nothing, I’ll get over it," he laughs, just a little bit. Maybe this conversation isn't going to be as difficult as it could have been. 

"You miss Pete. Come on, Patrick, he's spending all his free time with his girlfriend and you know you miss him, but you don't wanna admit it because you don't think he misses you. He does, he misses you, I promise." 

“Yeah,” Patrick scoffs. “Yeah, right.”

-

When Pete and Jeanae break up, as everyone knew they would, sooner or later, Patrick goes out to buy an extra-large pizza and brings it back to the scratty motel room he’s sharing with Pete that night. Joe complains about not being allowed any, but he’s met with a fierce protective hiss and a jab in the ribs as Patrick fiddles with the key to the room. Emotionally wounded, Joe retreats slowly, scowling and rubbing at the little pink mark under his shirt. 

“Hey, how’re you holding up in here?” Patrick sets the pizza on the foot of the bed that Pete has holed himself up in, and tosses the key onto the bedside cabinet. The room could be described as being damp with melancholic feeling, in Patrick’s opinion, and it’s full of only slightly different shades of yellow and beige that make him feel varying degrees of uncomfortable. The drapes are the kind of colour you might dress a baby in, they clash horribly with the maroon and mustard patterned carpet (which he notes is suspiciously bald in a few spots) and honestly the contrast between that combination and the (what can only be described as) almond wall paint is almost making him feel sick. He draws his attention away from the criminal interior decoration, however, and focuses his attention on Pete. 

“Mmpff,” Pete grunts, throwing the covers back and shuffling over to the edge of his worse-for-wear twin mattress, being careful not to knock the pizza onto the floor. He pats the spot next to him, so Patrick kicks off his shoes and slides in. When the covers are back up, and the cardboard box of destiny is bridging the slim gap between their thighs, and the bed is warm, soft, Pete slips his hand into Patrick’s like it’s the most natural thing in the world. The first slice is taken by Pete, but after his first bite, he holds it out for Patrick to take one. “Go on, you bought it,” he says, grinning that grin, the one that makes a little part of Patrick want to punch him and kiss him at the same time. The idea that Patrick could just have his own slice seems to completely escape them both. It’s cute, though, the way they’re sharing food, giggling at each other and-

Oh, oh, dear God, Patrick’s mouth is on fire. 

He splutters and coughs around his mouthful, but he can’t spit it out because that’s just plain rude, and Pete is sat next to him, still holding his hand, and still fucking grinning; Patrick hates him in that moment, because that bastard knew exactly what he was doing. By the time he actually swallows, Pete is in stitches laughing at him.

“Fuck you, Pete,” Patrick mumbles, tugging his hand away. “That was fucking mean.”

“Funny, though.” 

Patrick cocks his head to look at Pete, and even he can’t help but smile a little, even though he’s pretty sure the roof of his mouth is burned, and he knows Pete’s must be, too. For a few seconds, they just look at each other, totally quiet, the air heavy. Time may or may not actually stand still, neither can really be sure, because the hands on the clock are still faintly ticking away in the background, yet they don’t blink, and they don’t breathe; they don’t move at all. They are completely, wholly still, just for that moment. 

“Thanks for cheering me up, Patty,” Pete whispers. There isn’t any need for hushed tones, but it feels right, a world away from the raucous laughter just a few moments ago, as if they’re miles underwater, alone, not in some shitty motel room in Ohio, their bandmates and tour buddies a couple of rooms over, daring each other to do immature crap. 

“You’re, uh,” Patrick swallows and locks his eyes on Pete’s. “You’re welcome, Pete.” 

Pete leans his head forward slowly, the tension builds, and their lips bump together, clumsily, almost disappointingly for Patrick that his first clear memory of kissing Pete, the make-out king, will be of this awkward fumble, his eyes still staring, until he feels a hand on the back of his neck and oh, okay, yeah, this is working, and he shuts his eyes, opens his mouth and lets Pete do his thing. Pete’s pretty slow, and soft, not furious and violent like he seemed with Jeanae, he’s being careful, as if Patrick is suddenly very, very important in the grand scheme of the universe. 

Quite soon, Pete moves the pizza box onto the floor, and he pushes Patrick over, onto his back, straddling hip hips under the questionably stained covers. Surprisingly, the situation lacks the teenage lust they both imagined it would have time and time again, instead being filled with a calm sensibility that makes Patrick’s toes curl inside his dinosaur socks, and his dick throb in his jeans. His hat is discarded, laying forgotten on top of the pizza box, so Pete can tangle his hands in the strawberry blonde of his hair. 

It should feel wrong, because five years is a pretty sizeable age gap considering how Patrick is still awaiting his twentieth birthday, but it’s not. To Pete and Patrick, it couldn’t be more right, grinding steadily on some shitty motel bed, in some shitty motel room, in some shitty, shitty motel. Patrick thinks back to the distant days at Sunday school as a child, thinks about how he was always the priest’s wife’s favourite and best student, thinks about how there’s another boy’s hand working its way into his pants, and he almost shivers with the sensation of sin coursing through his body. 

They almost don’t need words anymore; they’re connected on some secret spiritual level that he didn’t know existed, but when Pete asks, “Is this okay?” he knows that these words are good words, the mark of a good man, and he can’t nod his head fast enough. His heart is pounding, his brain is working at a mile a minute just to register all the things that are happening, all the things he’s feeling, all the things he wants to see but can’t bring himself to watch because the unexpected is to be prized in a situation such as this. There are a million and one things he wants to say and do to Pete, but there’s two strong, tan arms pinning him down and melting his thoughts as fire melts wax. Distantly, Patrick thinks that he might like to see what Pete looks like naked under candlelight alone, and it’s safe to say that he definitely wants to do this again.

-

When the sex becomes a regular thing, Patrick isn’t particularly alarmed. They’re not a couple, but they’re comfortable and really, really happy, so they agreed one night in a post-coital daze of happiness blurred vision that, whatever this is, it’s a perfectly acceptable way to execute a faux-relationship until tour is over at the end of August. 

What does alarm Patrick, however, is that he’s beginning to bloat after the meals Pete has been buying him (he’s completely, utterly broke, okay?) and he’s not enjoying it. He starts wearing sweatpants when he eats just so that he doesn’t have to shamefully loosen his belt and zipper halfway through. Joe calls him a slob on a few occasions that hurt Patrick’s feelings rather a lot, and, yes, he does cry, but he sneaks off to the toilet to do it, and he’s only ever been discovered by a sleepy looking janitor that didn’t seem particularly motivated to spill his secret. 

In the very beginning, having sex with Pete was something he thoroughly enjoyed, looked forward to, even, a couple of little highlights in his week. But, after a few weeks, though the sex was still just as good, there came a time when Patrick caught a cold, the post-meal bloating had begun and Pete’s little quirks began to piss him right the fuck off. 

“For God’s sake, Pete, just help me out here!” Patrick drops the handle of the amp he’s busy trying to lift all on his own, and puts his hands on his hips. “You know we’ll get done faster if you could just get over yourself already.”

“Hey, hey, okay!” Pete throws up his arms in surrender, taking a few slow steps over to the amp. “Jeez, Mom, calm down,” he mutters. Bad mistake.

“Did you just call me Mom?”

That’s how the argument starts, but neither of them are really sure when it ends, because, Patrick starts crying rather quickly after, “You’re so bitchy this week!”, and that’s the end of that. They’re both still more than a little pissed at each other, but Pete’s heart aches to see Patrick reduced to a blubbering mess of tears, wiping his runny nose on his hoodie sleeve and glasses steaming up as his face flushes red. For a little while, they just stand together, close, but not quite touching; a few people, including Dirty, wander past carrying bits of equipment, and they definitely stare, so Pete flips them all off and they all scurry. Nobody wants to be anywhere too near a grumpy Pete (or a tearful Patrick, for that matter).

The next morning, Patrick wakes up in a relatively smart hotel room, bundled on the right side of a double bed, which is weird, because he always sleeps on the left, still wearing his clothes from the day before. His vision without his glasses is a little hazy, but he can make out that the door to the ensuite bathroom is open, the light is on, and the other side of the bed has been slept in. Pete’s sneakers are on the floor directly next to the bedside cabinet, and there is a sheet of pills (two, he notes, are missing), resting against a half empty glass of water. 

“Pete?” he calls, throat a little sore, and phlegm catching at the back of his mouth. He swallows thickly. 

“Oh!” Pete pokes his head out of the bathroom, and his hair is freshly flat-ironed, eyeliner newly applied. “You’re awake! Hi.”

“What? Wait, why am I…” Patrick mumbles, trailing off as his head clouds over with confusion. 

“Don’t worry, dude. I gave you some strong sleeping pills last night to knock you out. I think you’re coming down with something, ‘cause you look really peaky, and you were acting all spaced out after we had that stupid argument and I called you a bitch.” It’s a lot of words for a very tired little mind to process right away, so he just groans quietly, and pulls the covers tighter around him. “I moved you over to my side of the bed when I got in the shower, ‘cause I wanted to be able to check on you.”

“I’m… Fuck, I’m exhausted,” Patrick sighs. His eyes are drooping as Pete comes to sit on the edge of the bed and rub his knee through the covers. “Why am I so tired? What time is it?”

“It’s three now, and we’re gonna have to leave for the next stop, like, as soon as you’re up for it. We’re, like, two hours behind schedule and we’ve got a five hour journey ahead of us.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up earlier?” 

“What kind of shitty half-boyfriend do you think I am?” Pete chuckles and reaches for the glass of water. “Here. Drink something, or you’ll get a headache.” Patrick slurps up some water upon request, and his throat feels a little clearer after that. He’s still bunged up, though, and he’s hungry, but couldn’t face eating, still shaking in the aftermath of his late-night fever. “How ya feelin’, Stumpy?” Pete asks.

“I feel kinda sick, dizzy, maybe… I don’t know, I’m really hungry but I don’t even wanna think about eating,” Patrick complains. 

“If I wrap you in a blanket and put you on the middle bench, you’ll probably fall asleep when we start driving, and you can eat later before we go on stage, okay? If we get going, we should be able to make it in enough time to set up, unless we switch places with Armor…” Pete glances nervously at the digital clock. Patrick notices now that pretty much all of their belongings are tidied away into their battered suitcases, waiting by the door. He can feel their lateness in his bones.

“Sure, yeah…” Patrick forces himself to sit up. “Sorry we’re so late, I… I feel bad.”

“It’s totally fine, dude, you needed the rest,” Pete says, and then grins mischievously. “Now, what are your opinions on being carried bridal style?”

-

As Patrick wakes up for the second time that day, he is painfully aware of the fact that the cramped van he’s in is hurtling along a freeway, which doesn’t bode well for this dizzying, nauseating sensation brewing within him. His eyes flutter open, and he sits up, both breathing and movements laboured. 

“Andy?” He mumbles, voice barely coherent, stifling a burp. Andy hums in response from behind the wheel. “Can we pull over?” 

“Sure, I’ll put Joe on gas station watch-out.”

“No, no…” Patrick shakes his head, instantly regretting it, and his stomach surges. “Now, like, right now.”

“There isn’t really anywhere to go, Pat. Unless you want the dusty hard shoulder,” Andy laughs, and Patrick thinks that he doesn’t fully understand the severity of the situation.

“That’s fine, I don’t care, just-“ Patrick fists his hand in the fleece blanket in his lap, and concentrates on trying not to be sick in the van that four smelly, teenage boys are supposed to be living out of on and off for almost a whole year. Beside him, Pete is trying to be soothing, doing that slightly awkward knee rubbing thing, while Joe messes around with his headphones and iPod in the passenger seat, almost entirely oblivious. It becomes apparent rather quickly that Andy hasn’t grasped Patrick’s desperation yet, continuing to drive, clearly unaffected by the situation. When Patrick gags into his hand, Andy doesn’t notice the spluttering and coughing from the middle bench, but Joe cranes his neck to see, looking concerned.

“Dude, just pull over!” Pete yells.

Andy swerves into a bleak-looking attempt at a lay-by, still a little confused, slamming his foot down on the brakes at Pete’s sharp tone. Of course, by this point, it’s far too late, and there’s nothing that Patrick can do to stop himself vomiting onto the blanket. For a few seconds, there is relative quietness, besides Patrick’s little sniffs of embarrassment and tiny whimpers of discomfort. Then, Andy whispers something that sounds a little like “shit”, and Pete increases the intensity of his knee rubs.

“Hey, are you okay?” He asks carefully, brow furrowed. Unsurprisingly, Patrick shakes his head. “Chuck that blanket out the door, you can have Joe’s.” Pete is already reaching into the front to steal away Joe’s blanket, which is given up reluctantly.

“Isn’t that bad for the environment or something?” Patrick inquires weakly. 

“Patrick, dude, I love you and all, but that doesn’t mean that your stomach contents aren’t still disgusting and stinky as fuck.” Despite the awkwardness of the situation, and the shame still flushing Patrick’s cheeks, his heart jumps a little at Pete’s words as he bundles the blanket up and flings it into the barren wasteland outside the van’s metal walls. “Thank you. You wanna sit for a while?”

Patrick just nods, and he’s grateful that Pete makes Andy roll the windows down to air out the smell, but he already feels a little better. Still shitty, but better. Pete’s arms open wide for a bear hug, and he knows he probably has bad breath, but underneath Joe’s blanket, there is a certain familiarity to being right next to Pete, breathing him in and feeling him swirl throughout his lungs. It’s a crappy way for Patrick’s day to be going, but it’s weirdly comfortable now that the nausea has begun to subside, and, yeah, okay, if Pete were ever to really, truly fall in love with him, then he could totally get used to this. It might be delusion and dehydration talking, but in that moment, being Pete’s property, Pete’s everything, doesn’t seem so bad. 

-

“Dude, Patrick, are you okay in there? Did you just throw up again?”

This is Patrick’s lowest moment, not just as a touring musician, not as a teenager, not even as a human, but as any living organism. His face is hot with embarrassment, the skin all over his body is itching furiously with heat, and his sweat is dripping, running along his nose, down the frames of his glasses and into the toilet bowl. He’s kneeling on the sticky-ass floor of a gas station toilet cubicle (something he really wishes he wasn’t doing, mostly because of its inherent stickiness), a hand braced on each quivering thigh, trying his best not to melt. 

He begged Andy to pull over as soon as he saw the sign, and what he thinks must be heatstroke is really setting in, now, making his blood boil inside him and his stomach turn tricks. He regrets eating the fried rice he had been craving so badly three hours ago- in fact, this is one of those moments where he feels so much like crap that he regrets every single life choice that has led him to this point. 

Joe raps on the shaky cubicle door once again, and Patrick hates the fact that he turns around and lets him in. He hates the fact that he’s about to let him witness such a low moment so shamelessly. 

“What’s going on?” Joe locks the door behind himself, then leans against the tiled wall, crossing his arms and frowning. Patrick just retches, giving in to the panic and the sweat on his skin, trying to block out the noises he’s making as he vomits repeatedly. “Are you, like, motion sick or something?” 

“It’s probably some shitty kinda flu,” he responds eventually. 

“Can you sing tonight?” 

Fuck. Patrick hates himself, and he hates the universe. For the first time since his birth, he doesn’t want to sing, or to play music ever again. He just wants to wallow in his miserableness, at home, where his mom will bring him soup (maybe not, actually, based on the nausea he’s currently experiencing and the exorcist-style incident any food might invoke), and he can lay in bed all day. He’s tired, really, really tired, more exhausted than he thinks he’s ever been.

Almost seven weeks ago, his friends-with-benefits arrangement with Pete began, and it’s been the best time of his life. He’s touring, playing music he fucking loves, having great sex, and there’s nothing he wants more than this, this amazing thing that he has right now. Except for the fact that his stomach is bloated most of the time, it’s almost painful, and he has a cold that keeps coming and going. He’s putting on weight around his thighs and ass like crazy, which doesn’t make any sense because he can barely eat some days because of the persistent stomach turning. Crying, too. He’s crying a heck of a lot, and, Jesus, it’s so fucking bad-

“Joe.” His voice is shaking.

“Hmm?”

“Can you do me a massive favour?”

“Sure, dude. What do you need? I can buy you some water or something. Might make you feel a little better.”

“That would be great, actually, but, um…” Patrick swallows, and wipes his sweaty brow on the back of his hand. When he turns to look at Joe, pity is evident in his eyes. “Can you buy me a pregnancy test?”

-

“Dude, don’t fucking leave!” Patrick grabs Joe’s arm as he turns to leave the bathroom. 

“It’s peeing on a stick, Patrick. Buck up, you can do that crap on your own,” Joe scoffs and tries to pull away, but Patrick’s grip is like iron. 

“No, no, I can’t, I’m scared as shit, Joe, please don’t leave me alone. I might cry again.” The threat of dealing with more tears (this would be the fifth time in one day, but that’s not a record) makes Joe stay put. 

“Okay, just- Just explain to me again why you think you’re up the duff?” 

“I had sex with Pete a couple times-“ Joe clears his throat. “Okay, maybe a lot of times, but that’s not important,” Patrick corrects. “And I know I take my pill every day, but we never use a condom, and I just- I don’t know, I feel like shit all the time.” He glances down at his stomach, then locks his eyes on Joe’s. “I feel pregnant.”

“I don’t get how you can just feel pregnant, Pat. You’re nineteen. You’ve never been pregnant before. You’re probably just sick or something,” Joe says exasperatedly. 

“Motherly instincts?” 

“Oh, fuck off, Stumph.” 

Some part of Joe must still be a good friend, or maybe he’s just curious, because he stays for moral support while Patrick takes the test, though he does turn away, as he’s more than a little scared of what might happen if Pete found out he’d seen Patrick’s dick. He finds himself feeling anxious, and he feels silly for it, because the results of that test are far less likely to crush his dreams than Patrick’s. If Patrick had to give up touring, he could find another band easily now he knows Andy and Pete- oh, but, Pete. It would be his kid, too, and the Chicago scene will totally die out if Pete becomes some lame suburban dad with a Volvo and a wedding ring, so Joe really, really needs the test to be negative, for his own benefit. The test is face down on the counter, and Patrick honestly looks like he might pass out if Joe doesn’t give him a helping hand pretty sharpish, so he grips Patrick’s arms and forces him to sit down on the floor, leaning his back against the bathtub. 

“Dude, seriously, calm down. Don’t worry, you’re a smart kid, right? Smart kids don’t get pregnant- it’s probably gonna be negative.” He gives Patrick a comforting pat on top of his trucker hat. “The universe really doesn’t want Pete to be a dad yet, so you’re probably good.”

“I can’t be a fucking mom, Joe. I don’t think I could even push a baby out of me, let alone take care of it afterwards.” His hands are shaking, and he’s pale in the face, eyes blown wide. 

“We’ll cross that road if we come to it, dude. That’s the saying, right? Let’s just… sit here for a bit, while we wait for the two minutes.” After a few uncomfortable seconds of silence, Joe sits down beside Patrick and says, “You wanna talk about your feelings or something?”

Patrick just shakes his head and leans it on Joe’s shoulder. 

Then, and only then, do they wait. 

In years to come, Patrick would think of these two minutes as the longest he’s ever experienced. Two minutes full of wondering if, how, and when. Two minutes of silence that he fears might shatter if he breathes too hard. Two minutes spent on the very slightly grubby bathroom floor of an ensuite he’s supposed to be sharing with Pete, his half-boyfriend, leaning against Joe and waiting for a fucking pregnancy test to decide if he’s stupid or not. He thought that he’d take his first pregnancy test as a successful, happily married (most definitely not to Pete, of all people) person, an anxious and excited husband at his side, maybe after a few months of trying for a baby, when they really, really want it, badly. He even got realistic, and imagined himself crying a bit, out of happiness, of course.

This is not like that. Not at all. 

“It’s time,” Joe whispers. Patrick reaches up for the test wordlessly, and when he has it in his hand he shuts his eyes, bringing it close into his chest as he leans back. 

The moment he chooses to open his eyes is rather terrifying, in all honesty. He still can’t see the test, but when he does, oh my god, does he see it. A little pink plus sign stares right back at him, clear as day, and he swears his heart actually bursts with a mix of fear, panic, and, strangely, relief.

“Fuck, Patrick. You were right.”

“No shit.”

“Are you gonna keep it?”

Patrick cringes at the question, visibly tensing up. “Of course I’m gonna keep it. I’m emotionally attached to my hats, let alone my actual baby, you dick.”

“I was just asking, jeez. You’re still pretty young and you have no steady income, and neither does Pete.”

“I’m older than you. Are you gonna say anything helpful or supportive, or should I just ask you to leave now?” Patrick spits, tears brimming. 

“It’s three AM, Patrick. Where am I gonna go? You’re just pissy ‘cause you fucked up.”

“Please, just, go. Swap with Pete or something. He’s always up.”

“Are you gonna tell him that you’re having his baby?”

“Gimme a few days to think, Joe. It’s kind of a big deal.”

Joe looks like he’s annoyed, though Patrick doesn’t think he really has a valid reason. He leaves, and he takes all of his stuff with him, but Pete never shows, and Patrick cries himself to sleep on the bathroom floor. 

-

Patrick can’t bear the heat of this hospital waiting room any longer. It’s mid-autumn in Minneapolis, so it’s cold outside, blowing gale force winds which, even for the season and the location, are unusually strong, but someone has cranked up the thermostat inside, as if it will deter the gusts from the grey brick walls of the hospital’s exterior. The heat is making Patrick’s skin crawl, itch along his muscles as if trying to find a new home, just like Patrick wanted to crawl away from himself, from the shame of sitting here, in this room. Until now, the stigma had been a distant, blurry concept, but, now, it’s staring him right in the face, eyes trained on the spot above his nose, sharpening its claws, getting ready to pounce at any second. 

The room is largely occupied by women, but there are a few men. Some are clearly husbands and boyfriends of these women (most of of whom are noticeably pregnant), although there is a gay couple, Patrick thinks, in the corner, looking like they’ve got their lives together, wearing clothes that look expensive. One of them has blond hair and excited, brown eyes, and he keeps nervously crossing and un-crossing his legs; the other is black, with close-shaved hair and a tired expression, sporting a bump that one might place somewhere in the second trimester. He sees another man sitting there with a hand on his stomach, and, even though it still looks relatively flat, Patrick assumes he is pregnant, too. At least, he thinks, he is not alone. 

That’s when Patrick looks straight ahead of him. There is a young girl, no older than himself, he guesses, sat all on her own. She doesn’t look like a mother. She’s skinny, and she’s got this whole scene kid vibe going on: chunky highlights, a pink streak, heavy eyeliner and a pale complexion, wearing a tiny T-shirt that shows off her belly button ring and low-rise jeans under a dark hoodie, paired with battered, sparkly black Chuck Taylors. This girl is staring at her feet, fiddling with a hair tie around her wrist, and she is the only other person in the whole room that doesn’t look like she planned on being here. For some reason, this is a relief, because it means that it’s not just him that’s fucked up, that other kids his age do this. Maybe it’s strength in numbers, but, he suddenly feels a little more justified. The girl looks up, only briefly, but they make eye contact. She smiles a tiny smile. Then, she goes back to staring at her shoes.

About five minutes later, a slightly older couple leave one of the consultants’ rooms. The man is beaming from ear to ear, carrying a baby’s car seat. His wife (Patrick can see the enormous diamond on her ring finger) is carrying a tiny bundle of baby blue, gazing lovingly into the calming blankets. The couple stride right over to the girl opposite Patrick, and she looks up. 

“Here, take your brother for me, sweetie,” the woman says sweetly. The girl pushes her fringe out of her eyes, and then she reaches out for the baby, cooing softly before they’ve even made contact. 

Patrick wants to cry, he really does. All of a sudden, he is plunged back into his ice-cold loneliness, the only person in the room who has no idea what he’s doing. 

And, so, he waits, patiently, tears brimming for a long while, and then eventually a few sneak past. Some people look at him sympathetically, others look away fiercely. He waits for his name to be called, watching as the people he had observed filter away for their appointments. The gay couple go first, and the blonde man looks so proud that Patrick’s heart hurts deeply. Then the family receive their prescription and make an exit, laughing together; the girl is still holding her baby brother, almost as if she’s trying to rub her empty womb in Patrick’s face. A few more people get up, shuffle around, dip in and out of various rooms, brandishing their bumps and babies for the world to see. Lastly, the man on his own is called in for his appointment, still resting that hand on his vaguely humped tummy. The real loneliness sets in, then, when Patrick is alone in a room full of married pregnant women and he doesn’t fit in at all, not even into his jeans. 

Despite this, Patrick stands up when they call his name. He wants to melt into his seat and disappear forever, but he has a duty to himself, and, more importantly, to his very, very precious cargo to take care of his body, their bodies, because, if he doesn’t, then nobody will, and what kind of mother allows that?

-

“Pete?” Patrick is shaking, and there is a positive pregnancy test in the front pocket of his hoodie, next to the ultrasound picture he had printed specially for this moment. Had he the choice, Patrick would not have chosen a dingy hotel in New York as the spot where he informed Pete of their unborn child’s existence, but if he didn’t say something soon then he was going to explode. 

“Yeah?” Pete is nestled in their double bed, a treat because today is their two-month-iversary as a half-couple, and this was the best Pete could do on a shoestring budget. He pats the space beside him, but Patrick shakes his head, avoiding eye contact. “What’s up?”

“I, um, I have to tell you something.” Patrick is almost a hundred percent sure that he’s about to pass out, but he soldiers on anyway. “It’s really, really, really big.”

“You can tell me anything, you know that.”

“Yeah, well, I-“ he feels himself swaying dangerously and has to perch himself on the edge of the bed, leaning his forehead into his hands. Pete leans forward to place a hand on his shoulder. “I’m having a- your- I’m having your- um…” Patrick feels his cheeks burn red. “I’m pregnant. It’s yours.”

“Patrick, I-“ Pete stops when the words sink in. At first, he just looks confused, and then Patrick feels absolutely fucking terrified, because there is something in his eyes that doesn’t fit with the megawatt smile and the energetic, stage-diving personality- intense rage. “Don’t you take a fucking pill for that shit, Patrick?”

“Well, I do, but, I-“ 

“What the fuck is there to ‘but’ about, ‘Trick? Either you take a pill, or you don’t!” Pete throws back the covers angrily, and balls his hands into fists.

“I do, I take a pill, you watch me take it every day, but none of these things are a hundred percent, and that’s not my fault, Pete…” Patrick trails off, and he wants to cry. 

“Why didn’t you tell me that?!” Pete stands up, and Patrick instinctively takes a large step backwards. “I have a right to know that shit!”

“It’s not my job to do your sexual health research, Pete, and you know I’m a carrier, so it’s not like you didn’t know there was a possibility. Don’t pin this all on me!” His heart stumbles over its own function. 

“But then what, Patrick? This isn’t funny.” Seeming to sense Patrick’s fear, Pete tries to calm himself, pull it together and think up some rational questions, closing his eyes, gritting his teeth. “How far along are you, and when did you find out?” 

“About six and a half weeks. I saw a doctor two days ago. Here,” Patrick’s voice is trembling as he thrusts the sonogram at Pete. “But Joe bought me a test about a week ago, when we were in Maine or something, and that’s when I found out. Joe… Joe knows, but he was a dick about it, and we haven’t really talked since.”

“That’s not cool, dude,” Pete sighs. “Joe, I mean. He should be a better friend than that. He knows you mean everything to me.” The eye contact they share next is a little nervous, tentative, but reassuring, familiar- familial, even. 

“You’re not mad at me?”

“I’m frustrated at you, but I’m more mad at myself.” Patrick can still see an itch to hit something in Pete’s arms. It’s moments like this that Patrick is worryingly scared of the bipolar disorder running rampage in Pete’s brain, even though he knows that in there is the man he knows, and possibly even loves. “You’re still a kid, really, and I should have checked you got an implant, a patch, or something. I’m sorry.” The apology is met with silence. Pete forces himself to relax. There is time for anger when Patrick is safely out of harm’s way. “How do you feel? Physically, and, like, emotionally, too, I guess.”

“Like shit, Pete,” Patrick groans. “I’m really scared, and I feel down all the time, and I-“ At first, Patrick doesn’t even notice that tears have begun to fall. “I’m exhausted, honestly, and I feel sick all the fucking time. I can’t be near anything that smells too strongly because it makes me sick, and traveling is making me sick, you know that… I have this cold, and I pee all the time, and I- I had this thing, implantation bleeding and it sucked…” Sheepishly, Patrick tails off his complaints. “Joe helped me out at first, but he’s pissed at me for not telling you right away and I don’t think I can raise a baby on my own…”

“Who says you’re raising a baby on your own? Do I look like I’m going anywhere?” Patrick shakes his head, and buries his face in his palms. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through, playing shows, and feeling crappy all the time, and scared like that- it’s, God, Patrick, this is why I’m mad at myself! If I got you pregnant, the least I can do is make this as easy as possible on you!” In response, Patrick can only sob. “Give me, like a few weeks to get my head around this, and get back to me, okay? Is that okay?”

“Weeks?” Patrick feels faint at the suggestion of weeks more of darkness.

“Two, three, tops, just until Christmas, or something. We need to get this leg of the tour out of the way first.”

“I don’t even know if I can tour, Pete. I don’t want to have a miscarriage.” This is the part where Patrick forces himself to sit down on the bed and stick his head between his knees. He may not have chosen to be pregnant, but the last thing in the entire world that he wants is to lose his baby. “The doctor said it could be fine, but I don’t wanna risk it if it gets too much.”

“You’re perfectly healthy, Patrick. You’ll be fucking fine.”

“But what if I’m not fine, Pete? This is your child we’re talking about! How would you feel if something happened?”

“Nothing’s gonna happen, though, is it?” Pete rolls his eyes and waves a hand angrily. “This is what happens when careless little kids like you get pregnant- nothing happens because he universe wants to teach you to stop making stupid mistakes!”

“You think this is a stupid mistake?” Patrick straightens up, and puts both hands on his tummy, as if blocking the baby’s ears. “I’m about to mother your child, and you’re calling it a stupid mistake?”

“This is a stupid mistake!” Pete throws his arms around. “We’re not supposed to be parents!” He watches Patrick’s eyes begin to tear up, the bottom lip that wobbles, the thumb rubbing gentle, comforting arcs over an unborn baby. “Fuck this, ‘Trick.”

“Can’t we just be civil? I’ll give you until Christmas to get yourself together, but then, I need you to buck up and get on with earning some cash.” Patrick hates to say it so plainly, but Pete can’t be under some illusion that money isn’t going to be a problem.

Pete sighs reluctantly. “Christmas?” Patrick nods decisively. “Yeah, deal.”

-

Alone in the quiet van, tucked up in a thick blanket, Patrick is shaking, running his left thumb over the buttons on his Nokia, right hand splayed over his slightly pudgy tummy underneath his rucked-up T-shirt. It’s time to tell Mom that rather alarmingly soon, she isn’t going to be just Mom anymore, but Grandma, Nanny, Nan, or something else affectionate of the sort, and Patrick is so terrified he considers calling Pete first so he will come and hold his hand through this great ordeal that awaits him, but, Pete – Pete is still more than a little mad. Perhaps Joe would be a better option, but they’ve barely spoken since the day Patrick realised he was pregnant, and he’d rather not face the issues bubbling away under the surface yet awhile. Andy is the only remaining option (he’d rather not spread his secrets around the other bands on tour), but there is so much Andy doesn’t know, and Patrick doesn’t think he could bear to watch his own reflection falling from grace in Andy’s eyes as he speaks of his frequent missteps. 

And, so, alone and still shaking, Patrick decides that he has made his own bed by alienating himself from his friends, and, now, he must lay in it. 

With each ring of his mobile phone, his fear grows, a great, pulsating tumour of guilt and shame in his heart, and, my God, does he wish he wasn’t alone. Then, he glances downwards, at his right hand beneath the blanket and remembers that he is not, in fact, alone. In that moment, it seems as if he may never be alone again, never free from the sounds of hot, heavy sex that follow him around, or from the hotter, heavier ghost of the mistakes he and Pete (he feels obliged to remind himself of Pete’s fault in the matter, though where it lies, he is not quite sure) have made. The carefree teenager within Patrick wonders if every time he looks at his baby, his child, he will feel this same gross shame within himself, yet the mother slowly awakening in his mind can barely breathe for the proud tears already brewing. 

Patrick swallows, and tries to imagine how much his mother must love him, though it is hard when he is about to let her so far down she may as well be falling from a cliff. 

“Mom?” His voice cracks.

“Patrick, sweetie, it’s so good to hear from you,” Trisha says, sighing the sigh of a woman who has missed her son, whom she loves. This, Patrick decides, is not going to be easy. 

“Mom, I have to tell you something, and I don’t want you to say anything until I’m finished, okay?” a short silence tells him she is listening. “I’m pregnant.” One moment of relief, and then the onslaught. “It’s Pete’s baby, and he knows, Joe knows, too, and I already saw a doctor, but now I’m broke and I need your help. I’m keeping the baby, I think, I don’t know anymore, I thought I did, but I refuse to do this without Pete, and I’m not sure if he’s in.” Patrick squeezes his stomach, then lets go. “I’m finished.”

For a few seconds, there is complete silence, and Patrick wonders if there has been a break in the connection, maybe his mom heard him wrong, maybe she thought he was joking, and, then, just as the tears begin to spill over-

“Oh, Patrick, dear, don’t worry.” Patrick chokes on an almighty sob. “Everything’s going to be just fine!” 

“Promise?”

“Absolutely, sweetie. I’ve had three babies, and they all turned out okay, didn’t they?” Trisha gives a light chuckle, trying to lighten the mood a little. Shaking his head and weeping, Patrick mumbles something that strongly disagrees with his mother’s notion. “Don’t be silly, dear. If I’m going to be a grandmother, then we’d better get cracking with some shopping, hadn’t we?”

-

“So, you’re definitely keeping it?” Andy pushes his glasses further up his nose as he asks his question. 

“Yeah,” Patrick breathes out shakily. He lets himself rest a hand on his lower stomach. “I’m keeping it.”

“Did you tell your mom yet?” Joe pipes up, gazing longingly at the joint Patrick wouldn’t let him light up. Of course, he’s known since the test was taken, but in spell of frustration, he has avoided talking about it since. “She’s gonna be absolutely thrilled,” he drawls sarcastically.

“Yes, I did, actually, and, you’re right, she was thrilled,” Patrick snarls. “I didn’t invite you here to be an asshole, Joe, so if you’re going to be, you can go fuck yourself.”

“Invite me where? A dingy alley behind our venue for the night, to tell me something I already knew? You should go fuck yourself, Patrick, or, oh, wait- didn’t Pete already do it for you?”

The thing is, Patrick knows he fucked up. He knows because he thinks about it every time his baby makes him sick, every time he eats something he’s been craving for hours, every time he cries harder than he should, every time he has to suck his stomach in as far as he can, just to button his nicest pair of stage jeans. He thinks about it every time Pete rolls over in his twin bed to face away from him, and every morning that he wakes up to a reluctant, uncomfortable rendition of that award-winning, megawatt smile. He thinks about it every time he sees Pete’s face, because every time he sees Pete’s face he imagines it alloyed with his own, wide-eyed and toothless. 

“Come on, Joe…” Andy pleads awkwardly. 

“Fuck this,” Patrick sighs. “I’m gonna go nap before our set.” 

Just as he turns to leave, he’s stopped by Joe’s voice. 

“Hey, Patrick!” Carefully, Patrick turns to face Joe, brows drawn close together. “You owe me six dollars, by the way.”

“What for?” He scoffs in response. 

“Those fucking pregnancy tests I bought you.”

-

After packing up the show in Chicago for two weeks’ break over Christmas before the next leg, Pete pulls Patrick into his mom’s car, which he has parked on the curb outside the venue. He seems excited as they drive away, buzzing with the hype of some crazy scheme, and it would be intriguing if it weren’t terrifying. Patrick is only ten weeks pregnant, he still feels like a walking, breathing bag of crap at the best of times, and it’s worst after a show, so he rolls down the window and lets the sharp December air (along with a considerable amount of snow) into the cosy little Honda-from-home environment that Pete’s mom has created. 

The last few days of tour had been hard on Patrick’s already overwhelmed brain, trying to scrape together some change to pay back Joe for the pregnancy tests, trying to focus during shows, trying to remember which room he was supposed to be sleeping in. The worst part was not being able to drown his sorrows in beer at the end of the day, although he admits to himself that if he were still able to do that, many of his problems would be non-existent. He has begun to feel a little numb all over. Patrick holds his hand out the window and lets the Chicago winter beat down on his palms, just to feel alive, to feel something other than nothing. 

“It’s freezing out there. What are you doing?” Pete asks with a chuckle. 

“Cold air helps with the morning sickness,” Patrick replies, as if he’s daring Pete to make him shut the window. “Why, are you too cold?”

“No, I just don’t want you to be.” Pete takes a left, and Patrick recognises this as the route to his flat. 

“Where are we going? Your place?”

“Kind of.” Pete shrugs. “I moved into the bigger apartment upstairs. It, uh, it has two bedrooms and an office. I have a surprise.”

Patrick doesn’t say anything else after that, but he lets Pete pull his hat down over his eyes as he leads him out of the car, into and through the apartment, until they stop outside a particular room. Then, Pete pulls up his hat, and flicks on the light switch.

The room, clearly a bedroom, is full of baby things. There are swatches of blue and pink pastel paints on the walls, there’s a circular Winnie the Pooh rug in the centre of the room, a Moses basket, laced with yellow and green checkered ribbon right next to it, filled with toys, a little mint comfort blanket, and a wooden teething ring, a plush rabbit and a pull-along snappy crocodile. On what appears to be a toddler-appropriate table on the left side of the room (complete with a little chair), several newborn-sized onesies are laid out next to tiny pairs of socks and matching hats, miniature cardigans and patterned vests. It’s not enough to sustain a child for more than a few days before everything would be in the wash, but it’s a bloody good start. 

“You… I… Pete, how did you- what did you…” Baffled, Patrick searches for the right words, to no avail. When he turns around, Pete is on one knee, a ring box open in the palm of his hand. Inside that box is a silver band baring one diamond, solitaire, simple.

“Patrick Stumph. Will you marry me?”

There’s only one thing that Patrick can say, and it’s absolutely fucking brutal, but-

“No.” 

Honestly, Pete looks like he’s been shot, but not surprised.

“Thank God.” He breathes a sigh of relief, snapping the ring box shut and deflating a little, eyes rolling. “I love you, but I don’t want to marry you.”

“Well, why did you ask?” 

“My mom said I should ask, as a courtesy, or some crap, but this-“ he nods at the room behind Patrick. “That was me.”

“You told your mom? I haven’t told my siblings! What if she says something and they found out?” Patrick puts a hand to his swollen tummy in panic. It’s ridiculous, and probably just stress weight gain, but he thinks he’s already starting to show. 

“Don’t worry, she won’t blab,” Pete rushes, standing up. “I just need to know what’s up with us right now. I mean, I bought this bigger apartment, and I got out some of mine and my siblings’ old baby clothes, the ones that don’t look too eighties, and I bought all those toys new, but that’s no reason for you to be my boyfriend-“

“I can’t be your boyfriend. I love you, Pete, but if I have a committed relationship, and a growing band, and a baby on the way, then I think I’ve got way too much going for me. I’m bound to fuck everything up sooner or later.”

“For some reason, I get that.” Pete tosses the ring box into the Moses basket. “Are we cool?” He opens his arms for a bear hug. 

“Yeah, sure, I guess…” Suddenly enveloped in the same feeling of strong arms that got him into this situation in the first place, Patrick breathes in the smell of Pete’s cologne and his unwashed hair. “I love you,” he whispers. 

After a few moments, they begin swaying like a sappy, newlywed couple during their first dance. 

“I love you, too, ‘Trick.”

-

“I’m sorry I was a dick.” Joe says suddenly, when he and Patrick are waiting in the van for Pete and Andy to get back from their excursion to a nearby tree for a piss. 

“What?” Patrick looks up from the wheel and turns his head to Joe in the passenger seat. After several days of avoiding driving duty on account of slightly exaggerated pregnancy symptoms (exhaustion and baby brain are favourites, as nobody wants to risk another crash), Andy has clamped down, forcing him and his false claims of dizziness into the driver’s seat with a raised eyebrow. 

“I was a dick.” Joe shrugs. “You were vulnerable, you weren’t feeling well, and you were upset, and I wasn’t really any help. I’m sorry.” 

Stunned for a few moments, Patrick stares out into the almost entirely empty stretch of road that lies on the other side of the windshield. Then, quietly, he says, “You had a point, though- I mean, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the apology and all, but I did something stupid, and I shouldn’t have dragged you into my shit.”

“You’re my friend, Patrick.” Joe sighs, somewhat defeated by the response. “I want you to drag me into your shit. Drag me right the fuck through all your fucking shit.”

Silence for a few seconds. A salmon hatchback zooms past the awkwardly parked van. 

Patrick and Joe burst out laughing. 

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, dude! I just- Oh my God-“ Joe chokes on his laughter, clutching his belly. Soon, his entire body aches with glee.

“You sounded so serious!” Patrick cries, wiping a tear from his eye. 

“I was serious! That’s the worst bit!” 

They cackle on for a good few minutes, grabbing on to each other’s arms for support, tears rolling, and taking great gulps of air. For a short while, Joe forgets that one of his best friends is pregnant, going to be a mom; he’s just Patrick, the same Patrick that he met in a Borders book store, full of questionable opinions on Neurosis and completely un-pregnant. When the laughter dies down, he flips back into Patrick, Pete’s Patrick, still with those same questionable Neurosis opinions, but this time just pregnant enough that Joe thinks, sitting down, his stomach looks a bit (maybe even a lot) rounder than it did two weeks ago. 

Still, though, they’re grinning when Pete and Andy return from their tree pee escapade, and when they ask what’s so funny, Patrick and Joe melt again into a tsunami of laughter. Andy gives Patrick a knee to the back of his chair after a while, because he wants a good night’s sleep at the next motel, which seems like it might be a few hours away judging by he barren appearance of their surroundings. In mock protest, Patrick says something about it being rude to try to hurt pregnant people, but he’s already turning the keys in the ignition. They rumble away to their next stop fuelled by bubbles of laughing gas. 

-

Once everyone on tour knows about the pregnancy, Patrick falls into a kind of permanent stupor, silently going about his shell of a life, dealing with his feelings on his own. Sometimes, he talks to Joe, giggling like pre-teen girls about their friends’ drunken antics, sharing stories about their childhoods and playing guessing games. Other times, he talks to Andy, who tries to offer pearls of wisdom about what Patrick’s future may hold. Singles, albums, tours, awards, success and fame. When he isn’t talking to anyone else, he talks to Pete; even if not a single word is said, they communicate through the brushing of hands, soft stroking, kissing, even, in the darkness of their own motel room. 

About a week passes until Patrick realises that absolutely nobody is talking about his baby. Nobody is talking about the way Patrick still vomits at every gas station, or the way his jeans will zip half-way, but won’t even come close to buttoning, or the way he has to take bigger rests in between songs because something, no, someone is pushing against his diaphragm. Nobody is talking about it, but it is all Patrick can think about. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Patrick explodes, throwing down the setlist in anger. The room falls silent. Andy stops tightening the bolts on his drum kit, Joe gives up on tuning his guitar, Pete shuts his motor-mouth, and even Dirty pauses his safety assessment of the speakers. The rest of the little club they’re in is empty; every other band or crew member had found something more interesting and immature to do in the parking lot where they left the van. “Will someone just stop pretending I’m not pregnant?”

Silence echoes on for a few more heartbeats. 

“Are we doing that?” Joe asks stupidly. 

“Yes! You are! The only person who has even acknowledged that I’m pregnant this week has been my mom, and she’s not even fucking here!” Patrick sniffs to stop himself from crying. 

“Do you want us to talk to the baby?” Dirty pipes up, sounding a little confused.

“No! I want somebody, literally anybody, actually, to ask me how I feel-“ Furiously, a tear is wiped away. “Or help me out with the heavy lifting, or ask me what I’m craving, or something, just something. I don’t know, ask me what names I like or if my back hurts, don’t just stand there like blithering idiots!”

“Patrick?” He turns to look at Andy. “How are you feeling today?”

“Tired,” Patrick sighs, his cheeks flushing with embarrassment. “Really, really, really fucking tired.”

“You want some help with that mic stand?” Andy asks calmly, nodding his head in the direction of the offending object. “The base on it looks pretty heavy- you shouldn’t be lifting it.”

The mic stand isn’t heavy at all, but Patrick appreciates the sentiment, so he doesn’t object. “Please,” he replies, feeling more shy in that moment than he has in years. Andy steps up, smiling softly, and takes the mic stand away to where it needs to be. 

“’Trick? Let’s go get a snack,” Pete sidles up to Patrick and boldly slips a hand into his back pocket. “I think the place next door has ginger ale. Fancy some?” When Patrick nods in response, he’s blushing, partly due to embarrassment and partly down to Andy and Pete’s gracious responses to his outburst of frustration. As Pete walks him away, he knows he’s being babied, that his behaviour is childish and his friends really shouldn’t be sinking to his level. However, when he feels Pete’s hand on his tight tummy and an ice cold ginger ale in his hand, something that was wrong before has finally been righted. 

-

After the last show of the leg, in New York, everyone hangs around at the bar for a while, dancing, having a good time, buying drinks, the usual. Pete does a couple of shots to get himself warmed up, and there are some cute girls talking to Joe a few feet away, but he figures that a teenage boy only needs one at a time, so he sets his sight on the redhead to his left, taking a liking to her khol-rimmed eyes and mini-skirt. He orders himself a beer, thinking that a quick hookup would do just the trick to get his mind off of all the Patrick stuff still buzzing around in his brain. She's a curvy redhead, but she's no Patrick, and Pete hates himself for noting that. Maybe the blonde batting her eyelids at Joe would be a better option.

Being a dad isn't something Pete had ever really considered himself fit for. If Patrick were to move in and have the baby, raise it with Pete, then he'd be doing all the real work, feeding, changing, soothing, medicating when necessary, and Pete would be merely an assistant, he thinks, throwing out diapers and cleaning the apartment and doing the laundry, fading into the background. This is why he thinks that really it would just be best if he could just fall right out of love with Patrick and his gorgeous voice. 

Just as he's shaking off his thoughts, ready to approach Joe and his, um, companions, he spots Patrick out of the corner of his eye, sat on a slightly sticky (he can only assume) bar stool, stirring a little pink umbrella in the remnants of some fruity-looking drink that he really hopes, for his unborn child's sake, is virgin. The worst bit, however, is the creepy-looking guy leering at him, laughing and reaching out to touch his shoulder a few too many times. This infuriates Pete, makes his insides boil, makes his heart feel like it’s about to burst out of his rib cage. The guy is probably just being friendly, trying to chat up some cute singer he met at a show, and admittedly he doesn't look particularly creepy, but there's something about the situation that's sitting wrong in Pete's stomach. Creepy Guy, as he is nick-named, flags down the bartender, and waves an empty beer bottle at him, then holds up two fingers- oh, hell no. In Patrick's defence, it does look like he's about to interject, but then Pete's over-protective, don't-touch-my-baby-mama instinct kicks in. 

"Hey!" He yells, stomping over to the scene unfolding before his eyes. "He can order for himself!" He jabs Creepy Guy in the chest. 

"Um..." Creepy Guy holds his hands up in surrender. "Sorry? I figured all kids on the scene like beer."

"I do-"

Pete actually fucking growls when Patrick tries to speak. 

"Did he tell you? Huh?" He gives Creepy Guy another little poke. Creepy Guy takes a step back, and he looks confused. "He's fucking pregnant." Creepy Guy's brow furrows. "With my fucking baby. Let that sink in." 

"I didn't-"

"Pregnant, dude. Don't you know what that means? Fuck off!" 

"Pete!" Patrick thumps him across the chest with considerable force, and he feels a little winded. "Tom and I were just talking! That's none of your business!" He takes a deep breath in, and turns to a rather petrified Creepy Guy (Pete doesn't want to admit that he has a name). "Sorry, Tom. You're a nice guy, but I'm a bit preoccupied." 

Creepy Guy doesn't back away, just keeps staring straight at Patrick. A few times, he flicks his eyes over to Pete, who is currently seething not so silently. 

"As for you, Pete," Patrick huffs, not even looking at him. "You need to keep yourself in check," he says, and stands up, pushing past Pete and making for the exit. 

"Where are you going? We're not done!" Pete grabs onto the back of Patrick's polo, and he instantly feels like a giant dick, but he doesn't regret it. Not at all. 

"The hotel room." Patrick turns to look at him as best he can. "I feel sick." 

The look in Patrick's eyes says everything else that Pete needs to know. He's sick of playing games, sick of running in circles, sick of Pete's shit, sick of Pete. That thought loosens the grip on Patrick's collar, and he pulls away, disappearing into the crowd of people in the direction of the exit. 

When Pete turns back, a little stunned, Creepy Guy is still standing there, blinking in disbelief.

-

Back in the hotel room, Patrick is already in his pyjamas when Pete arrives, his cheeks tear-stained, and the elastic waistband of his pants (which has always been a little tight) low on his hips to accommodate fourteen weeks of baby bloating. He's sat on the edge of one twin bed, popping the ante-natal vitamins out of their packet and trying desperately not to cry again. 

"You're not supposed to go around picking up strange guys in bars when you're a mom, Patrick," Pete says quietly after shutting the door behind himself as he enters the dimly lit room. 

"Am I supposed to just sit here all night, then?" Sniff. "We were just talking, Pete." 

"That guy wanted to sleep with you, and you know that." Pete kicks off his shoes. 

"I know how to tell a guy I don't want to." Silence for a few heartbeats. "And even if I did want to, it's none of your business."

"None of my business? Of course it's my business! If it's my baby then it's my fucking business!" 

"We're not together, so I can have sex with whoever I want." Patrick keeps his cool, and takes his vitamins. "Pregnancy hormones are bound to make me want it."

"That's my job! I'm the baby's dad!"

"But you're not my boyfriend, Pete."

That hurts. Pete knows it's the truth. They're not together, not a couple, and so technically Patrick is allowed to do whatever, whoever, he wants, but there's a part of Pete that thinks Patrick will always belong to him. A part of him believes that they're bonded, linked, their names written in stars above them, nestled in the heavens, waiting for their love story to unfold. For that reason, that belief, it's hard to let go, hard to accept that Patrick needs his own identity, to be his own person, not just one half of ‘PeteAndPatrick’. 

Pete loses it. That's really the only way to put it. He's flinging pillows, throwing the sheets off of his bed, tugging on his clothes, screaming obscenities at Patrick, some tiny bit of his mind praying that the baby doesn't have ears yet.

"That's my fucking baby! Mine, Patrick!" 

Pete says this over and over, as if he's trying to convince himself, until-

"Pete! Stop!" 

Patrick has a hand on his stomach, the other on his thigh, supporting the weight of his torso. His head is bowed, his eyes are almost shut. There's something wrong, but Pete doesn't register it.

"Pete, calm down," he breathes. "I feel really weird, and I need you to calm down."

"Bullshit! You can't get out of this conversation! You fucked up, Patrick!"

"No, no." Patrick shakes his head vigorously. "I feel- ugh, I feel... owww."

"For fuck's sake!" Pete kicks the bed frame. "Grow the fuck up! We have to sort this out!" 

"I think I'm gonna be sick," Patrick decides, shifting forwards. In the next ten seconds, Pete's life is going to change. He doesn't know it, but something is about to flip a switch in his heart, change the focus from himself to Patrick, and to his baby. That something is blood. 

He sees it as Patrick gets up to go to the bathroom. It's a stark contrast to the white of the sheets, brilliant in colour, but terrifying, sobering. 

The back of Patrick's navy pyjama bottoms is purple as he cradles his stomach, groaning, and tries to walk, but he's in pain, consumed by an overwhelming urge to make a probably unnecessary racket. 

"Patrick," Pete whispers. He's scared of the words he's about to say, of their meaning. "You- You're bleeding."

"What?" Patrick grumbles a little angrily.

"Look, turn around, you're bleeding all over the bed." 

Patrick turns slowly, rubbing his tummy, and when he sees it, vermillion red in a great unsightly patch, his face pales. He stands still for a while, thoughts ticking over in his brain, evaluating the situation, trying to come up with a plan of action, and then-

What is he doing, standing there, waiting when he could be having a miscarriage? 

"Pete, we have to- Ouch, ow." a wave of pain stops him in his tracks. "Get me to a hospital."

"I, uh, okay..." Pete scans the room for the keys to the van. "You wanna get dressed?" He says, grabbing them from the bedside cabinet and stuffing them into the back pocket of his jeans.

"Fuck, no, Pete, we have to go," Patrick pants, slipping his feet into a pair of beaten up sneakers and grabbing his favourite hoodie, wriggling into it as he shuffles towards the door. "Do you know where the nearest hospital is?"

Pete searches his brain, dusting off every abandoned molecule of knowledge, and they're already in the car park when Patrick pokes him impatiently for an answer. 

"I think I saw a sign not far that way," Pete nods his head to the left, and pulls the passenger door open for Patrick, placing a hand on his lower back to help him up the step. As Patrick buckles himself in, Pete feels sombre. "Are we gonna be okay?"

"We still have to talk this out." Patrick's bottom lip wobbles, and a tear slips from his eye. "But some of our problems may have already been solved."

For the whole journey to the hospital, Pete ponders this, and his heart feels heavy, like a paperweight filled with tiny boulders. He thinks of the baby clothes, the toys, the Moses basket, the brand new teething ring. He thinks of the little bib he saw Patrick buying in Glenview over the Christmas break. He glances at Patrick and sees tears streaming silently down his face, and, for the first time in his life, he prays. 

-

Patrick looks like a balloon that's been deflated. He's lying on his side in the hospital bed, covered up to the waist in a thin sheet, the mattress protected from any further bleeding by what appears to be a puppy pad, his head only just on the edge of the pillow. His eyes are open, staring right ahead, past the drip in the back of his hand. 

"Patrick, I'm so sorry," Pete whispers, taking hold of the drip-free hand and pressing a kiss to its back. "I wish there was something I could do."

"They said they couldn't do anything," Patrick's voice is quiet and hollow-sounding. 

"We have to wait for the scan, you never know," Pete says it with false confidence, and he's pretty sure that his words aren't registered.

"There was so much blood, Pete." Patrick finally makes eye contact, and Pete can only nod in response.

They wait.

Then, they wait some more. 

They wait until the clock strikes three in the morning, and then a little more. 

The ultrasound technician arrives at five minutes to four, looking harried and apologetic. She’s moving and speaking so quickly that neither of them catch her name, something like Milly, Tilly or Lilly, and she has to repeat herself several times before Patrick understands any of the questions she’s asking him. Milly-Tilly-Lilly pulls out the equipment, a bulky screen emerging from a cupboard Pete didn’t realise was being blocked by his seat, and she doesn’t do the courteous thing of warning Patrick that the gel is cold before dumping a great dollop of it onto his sensitive skin, red from worried rubbing, causing him to recoil and pull Pete’s hand into his chest out of shock. The best bit is that he doesn’t move it back. Pete gets the impression that Patrick wants him here, to see him through to the other side of this terrible thing going on around them. 

“Right, let’s have a look,” Milly-Tilly-Lilly says, surprisingly slowly, concentrating on the grey shapes forming on the screen as she moves the wand around. “I’m looking for a heartbeat, okay? It kind of flashes.”

Patrick knows this. He’s seen his baby’s heartbeat before, at Dr Miller’s practice, on his own and with his mom. He’s seen it with his own eyes, but Pete hasn’t. What if the first time Pete sees his baby in ultrasound, it’s already dead? 

He thinks he might faint with the swirling pressure as Milly-Tilly-Lilly takes her time, starting on one side of his stomach and leaving no metaphorical stone unturned. This is the most tense moment of his life, and this is why Patrick doesn’t object when Pete, shaking from the nerves, presses a wobbly kiss to his jaw. 

“There!” Milly-Tilly-Lilly exclaims, eyes brightening up and becoming less reminiscent of a bowl of cabbage soup someone forgot about. She’s pointing to a tiny flicker, tiny, yes, but strong, consistent. 

They know they should be overjoyed. They know they should be clinging to each other, crying tears of joy, thanking God for his mercy. Instead, all they can do is begin to breathe again, clammy hands clasped, foreheads pressed together. Patrick closes his eyes. He can’t bring himself to keep gazing at the beating blur of black and white on the screen for fear that, if he did, a vicious part of him might trick it into stuttering to a halt. Pete, however, keeps staring at the baby on the screen. He can see the outline of a body, limbs, head, even a nose and precious, precious lips. Suddenly, he feels as though he can’t wait a second longer to hold his son or daughter, to tell them that he loves them, and, oh, yeah, he can totally see himself acing this dad thing, now.

And Patrick just lays next to him, a distant voice in his head wishing his baby were dead.

“Thanks, thank you so much,” Pete rasps from the brink of ugly tears. Milly-Tilly-Lilly just nods politely and rather hastily begins to pack away the equipment. She’s gone within ten minutes. Only then does Patrick smile guiltily. 

“I don’t wanna fight any more, Pete.” 

“Me neither, ‘Trick… What do you think about maybe getting together, you know, like a real-“

“I think I should get an abortion.” Pete stares, dumbfounded. Patrick is mad. Really, really mad. How does Pete think he has the right to sit there at his bedside, looking shocked, when he’s the one that is kicking off all of the fucking time? “We won’t work, and I’m too young to be a mom,” Patrick forces, looking away.  
Pete drops his hand, his heart going cold at its core. Finally, his head had begun to formulate an image of their family in his mind, the perfect trio taking on the world together. He feels shocked, and angry, and truly, deeply offended that God, if He exists, thinks this is fucking funny. In fact, Pete is almost entirely sure that God is real, sitting in his great, cloudy living room and chowing down on popcorn while he watches Pete aching as his life unfolds. 

“Wha- no, no, you can’t-“

“Yes, Pete, I can.” Patrick is weeping steadily through his words. “I didn’t ask for this- hell, I wasn’t even sure I ever wanted to have kids!”

“But-“ Pete feels like he might drown in his own feelings. Looking at Patrick, so vulnerable, and so alone, yet so young and bursting with potential, it makes him a better person. When Pete looks at Patrick, he isn’t selfish anymore, because, when Pete looks at Patrick, nothing else matters in the whole world but focusing all of his energy on those eyes. God, those eyes. Slightly pink with tears, and swollen, they are still so damn beautiful. Those eyes are all Pete needs. Sometimes he thinks he might die without them. “But, Patrick-“ Pete doesn’t even know what it is that he wants to say. All he wants to say is something that with soothe Patrick, but he doesn’t know what that is.

“I’m sorry, Pete,” Patrick sighs. “This isn’t right for me.” Patrick can’t face the life he would have with this baby. He can’t face a life of Pete’s seemingly constant, yet half-hearted presence, total lack of awareness and inappropriate parenting choices. He couldn’t deal with Pete only being there at the weekend, either, because he just can’t decide which hurts more: the sharp knife in his brain when Pete is around, or the blunt ache of his heart when Pete is gone. “I’ll let you know when I’ve got an appointment,” he asserts. This is his life, his body, his brain, and his decision, but why does every part of him feels like it should, like it does, belong to Pete?

“O-okay…” Pete mutters. If he knows one thing about Patrick, other than that he is perfects I every single fucking way, then it is that he knows how to break a heart, mercilessly, and never looks back when he does.

-

Pete is moping in his bedroom, as he has been doing all week, since FOB’s mini tour break began, wearing a stained sweatshirt and criminally baggy sweatpants, trying not to think about the mass of baby supplies on the other side of the wall. He picks up his phone and runs his thumb over its keypad a few times; then, he opens up his conversation with Patrick, knowing exactly what he will see, and that it will hurt just as much as it did the first time he read it, only this time it will ache like a powerful blow to a purpling bruise, rather than a freshly sharpened knife splitting his skin and dicing up his heart, finished with a sprinkling of citrus. He reads the last text he received from Patrick again.

appt at noon on tues at the dr’s surgery. my mom’s coming w me. i’m sorry. p x

His heart clenches again. It’s a little past eleven AM, Tuesday. Defeated, Pete pulls out a tattered notebook and starts writing. 

About an hour later, there’s a knock at the door. Upon checking the time, Pete sees that it’s twenty past twelve. He sheds a tear, braces himself, and curses whoever is at his door. He drags himself, a dead weight, to the door of his apartment, which is still littered with boxes from the now useless, wasteful move he made. 

Behind it, is Patrick. Patrick, holding a tiny mint green onesie, complete with matching mittens and booties attached to the garment by silky ribbons. There is nothing that Pete can do except stare blindly. 

“Firstly,” he says, then takes a deep breath, as if trying to hold back a heavy flow of tears. He looks as though he has been crying, and Pete wonders why, exactly, although a part of him dreads discovering the answer. “This is the last time I forgive you, Wentz, okay? This is your last fucking chance with me.”

Dumbfounded, as always, Pete’s mouth hangs part way open as he wordlessly takes a step back, allowing Patrick into the apartment, away from the slight chill of the hallway. He nods mostly out of fear of what might happen if he didn’t. Once inside, the door shut behind him, Patrick’s façade begins to crumble; he breaks.

“I couldn’t do it,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. He clenches his fist around the arm of the onesie. “I love you, Pete.”

Pete should be so mad. He should be so fucking mad. He should be livid at Patrick for placing him under such intense emotional trauma, for behaving like the fickle, reckless teenager that he is (that they both are, really), and for giving up on them when the going got tough, but coming crawling back at the next hurdle. However, if Pete did what he was supposed to do, he wouldn’t be in this predicament in the first place. So, he reaches out and takes the other arm of the onesie, and closes the distance between his and Patrick’s bodies. There, he can feel the little swell of baby, their baby, nestled underneath Patrick’s cosy sweatshirt, and there isn’t anything he can do to stop himself from kissing Patrick. After a few glorious seconds, he pulls back and says, “I love you, too.”

-

A few days later, Pete and Patrick are having dinner at the Wentz family household. This is the first formal event to mark the forthcoming ‘union’ (as such) of the two families, and it is so important that Pete is wearing a blazer. He’s wearing a tie, too, and even though they don’t really go together (it’s a myth that navy and lime green can work in tandem), the effort is there, it’s evident, which is all that truly matters. As for Patrick, he’s wearing the smartest thing in his closet that still fits. There really weren’t very many options to choose from, as ‘socially acceptable’ and ‘fits correctly’ seem to be two mutually exclusive terms when discussing Patrick’s wardrobe over the last few weeks. In the end (ie when they were running so late that simply not being naked was an achievement), Patrick opted for some of his stretchiest, softest blue jeans- a rubber band looped through the button hole and hooked over the button to hold them up- and a faintly purple button up that hangs open over a white tee. 

Pete and Patrick have never been style icons (well, it’s only fair to point out that Pete did try his best, despite his enormous failure in that field), but this is low for both of them, especially as they sit next to the adult sophistication of their parents. It’s clear they have a long way to go until they become rich, Christian-suburb-worthy, middle-aged wine lovers.

“Dale? You don’t happen to have any crystallised ginger, do you?” Patrick asks sheepishly from the dinner table, a few minutes after the main course has been served. The four heads other heads at the table turn slowly to look at him. Pete’s dad, Peter II, looks mildly alarmed, and so does Pete himself, but Dale and Trisha don’t seem particularly fazed. 

“Why? You want some for your roast chicken?” Pete chuckles. He’s joking, of course. Patrick’s face floods with a deep red blush. There are a few awkward seconds of silence while it becomes apparent that, yes, Patrick does want some crystallised ginger with his roast chicken, and, no, Pete doesn’t think that’s normal. “Are you being serious? I mean, ginger? Crystallised?”

“Yes,” Patrick huffs frustratedly. “Got a problem with that?” He folds his arms over the rather pronounced bump that has come with the nineteenth week of pregnancy. 

“No, no, I, uh…” Pete stutters from the top of a slippery slope. 

Leaning and faux-whispering, Peter II offers some advice. “Best leave it there, son, wouldn’t want you to get into too much trouble, now, would we?” Dale takes a swipe at her husband with a cloth napkin, and Patrick glares fiercely. “Hey! I was only joking!” Peter raises his hands in surrender and desperately attempts to change the topic of conversation. “So, what’s the due date, again?”

“I’m not going to let you sit there and laugh at me, Pete!” Patrick quips fiercely, completely ignoring Peter II’s comment. 

“I wasn’t laughing, babe-“

“Yes! Yes, you were!”

“No, no, I wasn’t, I just think it’s a little… strange…” Pete trails off upon risking another glance at Patrick’s face, realising that he’s probably only digging himself into a deeper hole. “Fucking hell, here we go,” he murmurs to himself. 

“Strange? What’s strange is that-“ Patrick cuts himself off with a choked sob. “That you can’t grow up! You’ve been such a jerk recently and I’m sick of it! You’re always banging on about how weird my body is and how inconvenient this pregnancy is for you! It’s your fault I’m like this in the first place!” Met at first with a more than slightly awkward silence, Patrick furiously wipes away his tears with the corner of his button-up and does his best not to meet anybody’s eye. 

“Patrick, sweetheart,” Trisha says, smiling. “I know you’re upset, which, of course, is totally valid-“ She takes a tactical pause. “But, do you think, possibly, you could, perhaps, be a little bit hormonal?” Patrick just sniffs and makes fleeting eye contact with his mother. Then, a knowing look down the bridge of Trisha’s pale, perfect nose, pursed lips and all. 

Still sulking, Patrick says reluctantly, “Yes, Mom.” There is no real malice in the words, but they are laced with just enough frustration to elicit a slight head cock and eyebrow raise. “Sorry, Mom,” he says, hanging his head just a little lower in shame. Patrick hates being reprimanded by his parents in front of other adults. Watching the exchange makes Pete realise how much of a child Patrick still is at heart, how much he relies on his dear Mommy to keep him in check when everything is just a little bit too much. Pete is far too old for either of his parents to even dream of telling him off in public, because he is an adult with his own apartment and bank accounts. Just six months ago, Trisha was hesitant to let Patrick stay out past half ten, let alone tour, or move out. If she had known what Patrick did managed to get done before half past ten every Friday night (namely, his high school lab partner in as many positions as possible), she would have been absolutely horrified. 

“That’s better,” Trisha smiles. “So, why don’t you tell Mr Wentz about when the baby’s due?” 

-

That night, when Pete and Patrick arrive back at the apartment that they now seem to live in, together, they both breathe great sighs of relief. They peel off their jackets, abandoning them in a heap on the hallway tiles along with their shoes, and, in the dark, they weave through their home to the master bedroom.

“Ready for tour next week?” Pete mumbles as he helps his boyfriend out of his button-up and bundles it up into the laundry basket. Patrick turns on the bedside lamp, illuminating the walls in a buttery glow of warm comfort. 

“Kinda, I guess,” he says. Even though he’s unsure, he’s smiling, unfolding Pete’s tie with a sexy precision. “Last leg before baby, right?” He pushes onto his tiptoes to kiss Pete’s lips. 

“Mmhmm,” Pete responds, careful not to be too sudden, or loud as to startle Patrick and ruin the mood. 

It takes a little while, but eventually they get in bed, pyjamas donned, laying next to each other, complete, cosy and content. Gradually the soft, occasional pecks grow more frequent and desperate, they intensify, dragging up the heat underneath the duvet as Patrick does his best to roll onto his front against Pete’s chest around the baby between them. Pete massages Patrick’s ass in one hand, the other braced high up on his side so that he can drag his thumb across the rapidly hardening nipple through the cotton T-shirt. There’s something unexpectedly hot about Patrick hovering above him, straddling his hips, baby bump resting against the virtually flat planes of Pete’s bare stomach. 

Before long, Patrick is grinding down on Pete’s crotch, running his fingertips through his hair, one pale arm braced on a tan shoulder for support. The air in the immediate vicinity is hot, hotter than hot, already beginning to smell of sweat and sex, littered with quiet whimpers, tiny moans and groans. Pete slipping his hand into Patrick’s pyjama pants goes mostly unnoticed, until a forefinger begins to work its way between the cheeks, eventually managing to pad at the hole that lies between them. Patrick pulls away from Pete’s mouth, swearing under his breath. 

“Fuck, Pete, it’s been a while,” he pants. At first, Pete thinks his evening is about to go massively downhill, but, then- “Got lube?”

“Of course, babe,” Pete answers with a breathy chuckle. “Who do you take me for?”

“I don’t know, you’re awful mysterious.” Patrick grins into the dark. 

“Top drawer, bedside cabinet.” Patrick doesn’t spend long rummaging for the bottle, and when he finds it, Pete pushes him onto his hands and knees, somehow wriggling himself into a kneeling position behind him. Once the pyjama pants are edged down to Patrick’s knees, Pete is pretty sure he has the best view in the world. He squirts some lube onto his first few fingers, and takes the moment of silence to appreciate the true beauty that lies before him. He raises his fingers up to dab some lube around Patrick’s hole, and then he pushes in the first two, slowly, but with a certain controlled power that feels exhilarating for both participants. “You good, babe?”

“Yeah,” Patrick breathes, barely responsive, immersed in sensation. That’s when Pete starts pumping his fingers in and out; the rhythm is syncopated, fresh, even for Pete, who knows Patrick’s body well enough by now to feel as though he has done this a thousand times over. Pete keeps working his fingers through Patrick like his pretty, pale ass holds the key to world peace, thoroughly as ever. “God, Pete, hurry up!” He whines desperately, arms shaking as he tries to support himself. 

“Okay, okay, babe,” Pete gives a light laugh, focusing his mind on the task at hand. It’s now his one and only job to make Patrick feel like the sexiest boy in the world, to make him realise that Pete worships every inch of the ground he walks on. He forgoes a condom, opting to spend a little extra time lubing himself up- after all, the damage is already done, in this case. 

He slides himself in fairly easily, with a fair amount of familiarity, but once he’s there, he realises that this is not going to be anything like having sex with non-pregnant Patrick. Well, he figures they must have done it at least once since the conception, before they knew, but he isn’t going to count that, because the last time they did this was four months ago, before the Bump swelled its way onto the scene, and something feels… different. 

“Hey,” Pete asks cautiously as he makes one, shallow thrust. Patrick whimpers a little. “Have you had sex since we last fucked? You’re really tight… Not that I’m complaining, I-“

“Pete, I’m five months pregnant, which means that A, no, I haven’t, and B, my hormones are not going to forgive you if you let this moment pass.” Pete can’t say anything for a while, because his brain is preoccupied with flushing his face bright red. “Get on with it, and fuck me already.”

Pete would have been foolish not to oblige. 

-

The baby has arms. And feet. And, obviously, a head attached to its tiny little shoulders, which lead on into those wonderful, wonderful arms. Why they are so wonderful, Patrick doesn’t know. Perhaps its’s because they are the arms with which this baby will one day cling to their toys, cutlery, blankets, their parents. Perhaps it’s because they look exactly like Patrick’s arms, all rolls and fat little fingers for grasping, with fingernails he can’t actually see on the screen but he knows are there, reaching up towards Patrick’s diaphragm as if they know they’re making singing an absolute bitch right now.

So, yeah, the baby has arms. 

But, so does Pete. Pete’s arms are currently both twisted around one of Patrick’s own (the left, to be precise), their fingers intertwined, as they both gaze at the screen in awe. Their baby makes a sudden movement, a stumpy little leg shooting out to give Patrick’s belly button a good kick. They both gasp; Patrick because he can feel that tiny footprint inside of him, and Pete because, wow, he’s never seen that before.

“Would you like to know the sex?” The sonographer asks, her voice sweet, like she never quite gets tired of that look on new parents’ faces when they see the baby moving for the first time. Patrick can only nod, for fear that if he tries to speak, his voice will have disappeared, melted away with his heart. While the sonographer searches, zooming in and out on a few paused images, rearranging her equipment, Pete and Patrick almost explode with excitement. In fact, Patrick stops thinking about the fact that the gel hasn’t really warmed up yet, and Pete stops worrying about everything that’s happening in his brain that isn’t real. 

“It’s a girl,” the sonographer says. The feeling that follows is one of relief and pure joy, despite the fact that neither of the young parents-to-be actually cared about their baby’s sex in the first place. A girl, though… A girl is good, because she can take her lady-like politeness from Patrick, her raw emotion from Pete, she can gaze up at her grandmothers, matriarchs of their families, and be inspired to step forward, into the bright world, as a mixed-race woman with role models that have shown her how to carve her own path in life with her own, delicate hands. A girl is someone Joe and Andy will guide through her romantic endeavours, because she will not be afraid to show them, or anyone, really, how she truly feels. Suddenly, Patrick doesn’t know what he would do if he wasn’t having a girl. Maybe he would collapse, stunned by the shock of losing his favourite person that he’s never even met, or, maybe, he would fall straight in love with his son, and shudder at the thought of a daughter. 

The rest of the afternoon passes by in a blur. Patrick cries, many times, of course, and Pete weeps a little when he goes to the bathroom. Otherwise, it’s business as usual. They thank the sonographer enthusiastically, and they pick their prints, deciding then and there exactly which ones to frame. Then, they head home, all fuzzy and warm on the inside, to write music and cuddle up together on the sofa. 

They are not alone, though. No, they are followed everywhere they go by the blossoming of their daughter’s vibrant personality, and it feeds off of their energy as it grows into something, in their opinion, greater than the two of them combined could ever aspire to be. They will never truly be alone again, Patrick figures, himself especially, because he will never be ‘just Patrick’ again; a part of him will always feel as if he is, first and foremost, the body that housed his child, his daughter, his baby girl.

-

Blanket. Roll. Tuck. Rest. 

A short moment of relief from restlessness.

Wiggle. Roll. Twist. Turn. 

A deep, deep sigh. 

Blanket. Roll. Tuck. Rest. 

A heartbeat in which there is nothing. 

Wiggle. Roll-

“Can you just decide which side you’re sleeping on?” Joe asks calmly, although he has already resigned himself to his fate of a disrupted night’s sleep in the van. Met with no response, he soldiers on. “Do you want my blanket, Pat? ‘Cause you can have my blanket if it’ll help you sleep quicker.”

“No thanks, Joe,” Patrick says softly, as not to work himself up into a hormonal frenzy. “I just can’t get comfortable. The baby won’t stay still, she keeps wiggling and rolling around… Kind of twisty-turny and fluttery.” 

“She… It still seems so surreal to know we’re having a daughter,” Pete pipes up from the driver’s seat. He doesn’t turn to look; he keeps his eyes glued to the dark tarmac illuminated with orange flood lights. Andy, however, does crane his neck from the passenger seat to see Patrick on the middle bench, who is now sat up, rubbing his rounded tummy, having abandoned the notion of sleep for a little while longer.

“I know… I love her so much already.” 

“Hey, seeing as it’s a girl, can you call it Josephine? It’d make up for the sleep I’m losing,” Joe sounds a little whiny, but nobody can blame him. It’s nearly two AM and they are still on a freeway, far from their intended destination of Ohio. 

“You think you’re losing sleep? Try spooning him,” Pete laughs. 

“Hey! I’m the one that’s-“ That’s when the baby kicks. Pressure, clear but mesmerizingly soft, packed into a tiny spot just to the left of Patrick’s belly button. “…Pregnant.”

“Everything okay, Pat?” Joe asks noticing the spaced-out look in Patrick’s eyes and the almost slurred speech. 

“The baby… The baby, she just-“ Patrick dabs away a happy tear. “She just kicked for the first time!”

“Really?” Pete can’t tell if he’s disappointed or not that he’s driving while this is happening. He had been so worried, seeing as the bleed had been so severe just over a month ago, and the baby wasn’t really showing many outward signs of health- until now, that is. Seeing Patrick, still, of course, teary, nodding in the rear view mirror is all he needs to allow himself to begin to feel excited. “That’s great babe! I’m so proud of you, ‘Trick, well done!”

“I didn’t really do anything,” Patrick argues weakly, blushing. 

“No, no, babe.” Pete grins like a madman. “You… You did everything.”

“Awww,” Andy smiles from his cosy sleep cocoon. “I’m happy for you guys. This is cute.”

“Can I go to sleep yet?” Joe moans. He’s not holding back any longer. 

“They’re having a moment, Joe,” Andy hisses in a whisper. 

“It’s fine, Joe. Go to sleep,” Patrick soothes in a motherly manner. Joe obliges, covering his head with the blanket he never really wanted Patrick to have, and turning away from the others with a low, disgruntled rumble. “So, Pete,” Patrick starts quietly. “How do you feel about the name Josephine?”

-

“For the last time, Pete! We’re not naming her Crash!” Patrick is yelling, several hours later whilst the couple wait in line for their service station MacDonald’s. “That’s just child cruelty!” He gives Pete a firm whack on the arm with the back of his hand, and reverts to his most comfortable waiting-in-line position, arms folded across the bump, bodyweight leaning on the left hip, but with a new feature: pissed off pregnant person scowl. 

“Well, you come up with something better!” Pete counters. It pains Patrick greatly to look into his eyes and realise that he is being completely, entirely sincere. The successful-looking, appropriately aged, pregnant woman in front of them in the queue turns her head slowly, and shoots Patrick a sympathetic look, along with a curt nod of respect for the fallen. Patrick closely examines the precise beauty of her bantu-knotted hair, her clear skin, her maternity blouse, her manicure, and, perhaps most importantly, her dazzling engagement ring. This woman, seeming to be an African goddess of fertility and prenatal serenity come to life, turns back around, and steps forward to have her order taken. 

Patrick’s only saving grace is gone.

“I came up with so many things! They were all so much better!” Patrick pleads. “Weren’t you listening?”

“I was listening, babe, but you lack originality! What kid wants a boring name? Either we pick something cool, and awesome, like Crash or Cherub, or we go with Josephine.” It sounds so final, but Patrick refuses to give in.

“You’re about to make me push a kid called Cherub out of my ass? No fuckin’ way!” He punctuates the final statement with a sharp elbow being jammed into Pete’s ribs. 

Once he’s over the shock and the initial pain (the blow was calculated precisely enough that the worst is definitely yet to come), Pete begins to surrender, albeit in a reluctant, stubborn manner. “Fine, fine… What do you wanna call her?” 

“Rose.”

There is a short silence, while Pete, inside his brain, desperately tries to cook up a strong opposing statement. For a second, he lets himself imagine ‘Rose’, and he sees her tumbling in a garden they can’t afford yet, tiring herself out before bath time in a great claw-footed tub, snuggling down with Mommy Patrick in her princess bed and silk nightie. ‘Rose’ is the nice little girl with rich parents and her own bantu-knots, perfect dresses and neat shoes, the kid little Patrick would have been friends with. ‘Cherub’ (or ‘Crash’, he can’t decide) is the kind of kid that lives in the apartment her parents first brought her home to, and grows into the teenager that scales the outside walls of said apartment building to sneak off to parties, despite her heavenly name. 

Pete knows what he has to say.

“Fine. But, make it Rosa. Rosa is one thousand percent more badass,” he bargains, draping an arm over Patrick’s shoulders. “And I get to pick the middle name.” 

Sceptical, Patrick pauses to think for a moment. “What’s your middle name proposition?” He asks, eyebrow raised. 

“Caroline, like Carrie from that freakin’ awesome movie.” Pete grins, exceptionally proud of himself.

“Crash Caroline? That’s where you were going with that?” The couple’s eyes don’t meet, but they both know that Pete was, indeed, going there with that. “Fine. I guess I dodged a bullet, then.”

“Rosa Caroline Wentz, huh?” Pete asks himself after a short (miniscule, really) period of reflection. It turns out that he’s secretly too nice at heart to let his boyfriend push a kid called ‘Crash’ (or Cherub, for that matter) out of his ass. Patrick nods, and, finally, their eyes meet. “I can’t wait to meet our baby girl.”

“Neither,” Patrick hums happily, as they step up to give their order at long last. 

After they receive their brown paper bags of glory, Pete, Patrick and Rosa take a sleepy, dawdling walk back to the parking lot.

-

As Pete drags the last of the wonky-wheeled suitcases through their apartment door, Patrick breathes a sigh of relief. He potters around the living room, pawing at his stomach, feeling for kicks. At thirty-two weeks pregnant, squash-sized baby Rosa is becoming rather weighty, and so the stomach swelling required to accommodate her is considerable. Before and during the early weeks of pregnancy, Patrick had those unexpectedly beautiful silvery stretch marks over his love handles, thighs, hips, and ass, but now, his skin is under so much strain that they have become red and irritated across the sides of his stomach-turned-bump. He still thinks they’re beautiful, but maybe a little less so. The old ones made him feel like a statue perfectly carved from marble, or ivory, but the new, intense shade makes him feel like some kind of warrior princess, ready to take on the world.

Even though it’s new, and terrifying, Patrick likes being a warrior princess. He hopes Rosa will grow up to be whatever kind of princess she chooses, warrior or otherwise. 

Pete, ever the loving boyfriend, goes about taking the suitcases into the master bedroom, unzipping them and unpacking (albeit much slower than non/less-pregnant Patrick would have). This leaves Patrick free to kick off his shoes, switch on the TV (one of those property shows is on, followed by Masterchef, and he really has to put in effort to contain his excitement), and laze around on the sofa. 

He powers through countless episodes of mindless reality television meant for middle aged people before Pete comes back through, into the kitchen, with a fond chuckle. They have a short conversation about dinner, and eventually they decide that Chinese takeout is the best option, so Pete orders and joins Patrick on the sofa. They watch and they eat and they snuggle, living their silent-seeming life in total peace. 

The truth is, Patrick likes the silence. He likes the quiet, and the fact that, most of the time, there is no need for words with Pete, because they are totally natural away from the buzz of tour life and the constant hum of a badly tuned guitar in their shadows. Patrick likes the suburban section of his life, because it is what he has chosen, not his mom, or his band, not even Pete, but him. He has chosen to build a home with Pete, not anyone else, not anyone more sensible, or rational, not a better cook, or someone richer; he has chosen Pete because he has also chosen their baby, and he figures that they’re kind of a package deal, you know, being father and daughter and all. 

Patrick likes the quiet, for now, because he sees moments in his future of bright lights and screaming fans and deafening noise. He likes the boring quality of middle aged people’s reality TV, of sitting around doing nothing in his princess warrior suit of stretch marks. Sometimes, even princess warriors need a little silence in their lives, time to spend with their knight in shining armour, or, in Patrick’s case, bass player in stupid ‘Stump Club’ T-shirt. After all, how else would they gather the energy to kick the asses of the world’s fairy-tale villains?

-

“Dude, what the fuck?” Joe flings his brand new paint brush at Andy’s feet in frustration. “Patrick wanted Pearl Glow in matte on the walls and Lilac Spring in gloss on the skirting boards! You brought Raspberry Bellini in soft sheen and Atlantic Mist in silk! Atlantic Mist isn’t even in the same colour palette as Lilac Spring! This is all completely wrong!”

Dumbfounded, Andy stares blankly back at Joe. “I have absolutely no idea what you just said, dude,” he says, heart racing with trivial panic. “You showed me the swatches and I bought what looked closest!”

Joe sighs like an exasperated mother. “For fuck’s sake, Andy! Patrick is going to skin us alive when he finds out!”

“If,” Andy breathes. “If Patrick finds out.”

“Of course he’s going to realise he’s putting his kid to sleep in a bottle of Pepto with blue trim!” 

Trying desperately to find an out, Andy pauses with his hand on his chin. It’s not looking good. He briefly scans the Magnolia nursery in which he stands, glancing at the pile of flat-pack furniture he and Joe are supposed to be helping Pete assemble later. Imagining Patrick laying down a tiny newborn in a room as brightly coloured as the label on the paint tin he’s holding, he realises what a massive mistake he has made. “Oh, shit,” he whispers faintly. “Why couldn’t Pete do this?”

“Because he’s going maternity shopping with Patrick today,” Joe sighs. “I still can’t believe they’re really about to have a baby.”

“I know, dude. This shit is absolutely fucking crazy.” Andy seems a little spaced out, mulling over the situation at play. “I should probably go get the right paint.” 

“Yeah, you should,” Joe sighs, almost conclusively. “I’m pretty sure they’re gonna notice if you don’t.” 

Hours and hours later, with the new paint fresh on the nursery walls, Patrick, blindfolded, is ushered into his unborn baby’s bedroom. When the blindfold is untied, he gasps and smiles (well, he smiles as much as he can through the overwhelming smell of drying paint). The crib, a pearlized white wood, sits empty a few inches off of one of the walls; it matches the dresser with a built in changing table. Then, under the window, is that miniature table and chairs set that melts Patrick’s motherly heart. On its surface, a rainbow of chunky wax crayons lay perfectly arched next to a single white piece of card adorned with a single, crayon-drawn rose. 

“We thought it would be nice to have it there, you know, waiting for her,” Pete mentions softly, resting a hand on his boyfriend’s lower back.

Almost immediately, Patrick’s eyes begin to well up, and it’s not long before the tears spill over. It’s fair to say that he has been reduced to a blubbering, hormonal mess at incredible speed. It takes him a while to be able to form words again. “She’s- She’s gonna love it so much, you guys!” He wails eventually, sniffing as he goes. 

“Do you love it, though?” Andy asks smugly, bouncing on his toes a little with pride. “The pink isn’t too bright? Purple just purply enough?”

“I guess… They are the colours I picked, right?” Patrick laughs weakly, attempting to dry his tears and looking a little unsure of Andy’s questions. 

“Don’t worry, dude,” Joe, who seems very unimpressed, reassures. “Andy fucked up earlier- he bought Raspberry Bellini and Atlantic Mist. Such an amateur…”

“Joe, dude, you are also an amateur,” Pete states rather matter-of-factly.

In response, Joe rolls his eyes, and quips, “It was worse than you might think. I saved you from a colour palette clash conundrum.”

“Right…” Pete is astounded by his friends’ behaviour. “Thank you, guys, anyway. It’s such a big help for us.”

“You’re welcome, dude, always. Anything for Baby Wentz.”

-

Wednesday is never a particularly exciting day in the Chicago suburb where Pete and Patrick are living, nothing much happens, and that’s just the way they like it. From Friday to Sunday, they go out to see friends, hang around on old couches in ‘new’ apartments, mess around with instruments, watch teenage boys doing stupid pranks, and avoid clouds of weed smoke. On weekdays, Patrick relaxes in bed or on the sofa, while Pete is playing hunter-gatherer on his regular shifts as a cleaner at a local elementary school (they’re trying to get in early, and the classrooms are being used for craft classes all summer). They have all the time in the world during the week. Enough time, in fact, for a baby to be born.

This is exactly why Patrick doesn’t expect this baby to arrive on a weekday. This baby is a Wentz, and so he had half expected for the child to be born in the most dramatic way possible, probably in some slightly sketchy apartment’s bathroom, delivered by emergency paramedics. Patrick thought that his meticulous birth-planning might all go to waste, that he wouldn’t get his relaxing birthing pool time, or his skin-to-skin, that it would all be for show, time poured down the drain.

It's a Wednesday evening. Pete is slouching through the door from work, still wearing his hilarious, jungle printed scrubs, and complaining about how messy the tiny tots’ finger painting session had been. 

“Seriously, ‘Trick, we’re never buying our kids finger paint. Or normal paint.” He collapses onto the couch next to Patrick. “No coloured crayons in the summer, either, they’re a bitch when they melt into the carpets.”

“Kids, multiple?” Patrick hums in pleasant surprise. 

“Yeah, sure,” Pete says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world to him. “When we make a proper album, and make some money to buy our own house, you know, and Rosa’s a bit older, then, yeah… Why not?”

“How many do you want?” Patrick asks, basking in the warm glow of what their future together may hold. 

“Three, I think.” Pete smiles, and presses a short kiss to Patrick’s forehead. “Just enough so we’re outnumbered, always on our feet-“

All of a sudden, Patrick squeezes Pete’s arm. There’s something else warm, now, and wet, too, between his legs, gushing into the sofa cushion- oh, no, dear God, Patrick is peeing himself. But, then, it won’t stop. Just as suddenly as the panic began, it is over.

Well, it is initially, but then Phase II sets in. 

“Pete, my waters are breaking,” Patrick says faintly.

“Oh- okay…” Pete starts, glancing at the hospital bag on the coffee table. “We’re having a baby!”

One down, two to go.

-

Joe is watching Patrick intently. Watching, waiting, and worrying from the discomfort of this plastic hospital chair that seems as if it once made an attempt at being padded with some yellowy foam, but now rests in dire need of either revival or removal. Joe strongly suspects that the latter would be more appropriate. 

Patrick has been completely quiet for a long time now. Joe has watched him kneel there, in the hospital birthing tub, wearing only an oversized T-shirt, forearms against a dip the thick rim of the tub, hands tight around the horizontal metal handle bar made specifically for this purpose. His eyes have been closed for fifteen minutes, and Joe is surprised at how peaceful he looks for the most part. It’s starting to worry him. Patrick, however, is entirely relaxed.

Every three minutes or so, his face screws up, and he starts whimpering, breathing harder than normal, and his fingers go white from squeezing the handle. When this happens, Joe quietly mentions that he’s doing really, really well, like, so well, and that it’ll all be over before he knows it, even though Joe doesn’t think that Patrick really needs him to do this. It’s just, if he doesn’t, Joe feels like he’s being a crappy Pete stand-in. Before Pete left to go eat something with Trisha in the cafeteria, he had been on his knees right by the tub, stroking Patrick’s hair and dabbing his brow with a damp flannel wrapped around some ice cubes. He had been feeding him sips of water and ice chips, kissing his hands and all together just being the world’s best boyfriend/dad-to-be. 

When Joe gets within three feet of the birthing tub, Patrick hisses like a tame cat turned savage. 

Yeah, this shit is so real, Joe is thinking about Seamus Heaney. Who even gives a fuck about Seamus Heaney anymore? More importantly, why does Joe, in this particular moment, give a fuck about Seamus Heaney?

It’s probably because, to put it bluntly, Joe. Is. Terrified. 

He’s been sitting with Patrick for about half an hour now, and, honestly, even though he’s terrified, he’s never seen anything this beautiful before. He is watching his best friend transform, morph from a beer-loving, golden-voiced, hard-partying scene kid to some kind of ethereal, peaceful mother, who trusts his body to birth his baby whichever way it decides to. 

As each contraction comes and goes, the anticipation in the room rises. Joe thinks they must be getting close, now. It’s just the two of them, because it’s three AM and Patrick’s waters broke almost thirty hours ago, and Pete finally broke and decided he had to pee, drink more coffee and eat. Andy is napping in the waiting room with Dale, having done a short stint as birth partner around ten hours earlier, when the panic-ridden Patrick was still crying on the bed as the pool filled. Being alone with Patrick only makes Joe more excited, because he can focus fully on supporting his best friend in whatever way possible (as long as it’s at least three feet from the tub). 

Patrick’s face screws up again, and this time, Joe branches out a little with his comforting methods. 

“You’re gonna be such a good Mommy for Rosa, Pat,” he says, quietly, but confidently. 

“You think so?” Patrick asks, a while later, when the contraction is over, voice a little raspy until he clears his throat. This is the first time he’s spoken in about twenty-five minutes, which is a pretty long time for motor-mouth Patrick, so it’s pretty exciting. 

“Yeah, dude. Of course,” Joe reassures him, and then frowns. Patrick has furrowed his brow, and dipped his head lower. “You okay?”

“Don’t- don’t freak out, okay?” Joe nods, even though Patrick’s eyes are still closed. “I feel, like, I don’t know…” Patrick lifts his head and opens his eyes, slowly. “I think I wanna push.”

“What?” Joe recoils slightly.

“I wanna push on the next one… I feel like I gotta push,” Patrick whines as the pain begins to swell again. “Joe, man, seriously…” Ethereal, peaceful mother Patrick is slipping away. He makes a grunting sound like he’s trying to resist something. Patrick’s eyes, live with electrical energy, despite the twenty-eight (or is it twenty-nine, now?) hours that have come before, lock with Joe’s. “She wants out. Now.” 

“How- how do you know? Are you sure? What if it’s too soon?” 

“Motherly instincts?”

Joe almost laughs. Fuck off, Stumph, he thinks. “You want me to get the midwife? Oh- and Pete?”

Patrick only nods. It’s go time. 

-

Pete can’t believe what he’s seeing. 

Patrick is facing him, squatting, up to his armpits in warm water, arms braced over Pete’s shoulders, stark naked in the birthing pool. Pete, who has opted to wear a pair of boxers (Trisha is so very close by, as is the midwife, Jennie), is also in the birthing pool, perched on a seat moulded into its side.

It’s been just over an hour since Joe, in a panicked frenzy, rushed up to him in the cafeteria, running off some crazed spiel about his baby being born “right the fuck now”. 

Pete can’t believe what he’s hearing.

After thirty-three weeks and five days (Pete doesn’t count the six between conception and discovery), there is a midwife with her hands in the birthing pool, fingers braced around the crowning head of Rosa fucking Wentz. 

“That’s it, Patrick, little pushes, keep going,” Jennie is saying, sounding incredibly chipper for four-thirty in the morning. 

Pete can also hear Patrick groaning, and panting, through those little pushes, which don’t sound very little at all. He can hear the water sloshing around as Jennie twists for a better look, and he can hear Trisha crying. The crying is probably the scariest part, actually, because it forces Pete to imagine that, one day, it could be Patrick crouched by a birthing pool with damp cheeks, gently encouraging their daughter, Rosa, to carry on, to push again, even though she feels she can’t. 

Lastly, Pete can hear his heart. It’s pounding. Pounding with fear and anticipation and happiness. He feels as though he’s going to burst any second. This love, pulsating in his chest and radiating from his skin, it’s all consuming, it’s masking everything else he tries to think, or feel, or do, because this, this moment, right here in this hospital room, is the greatest moment of his life. Never again will he amount to this much again, it seems, because nothing, absolutely nothing could be more incredible than what is happening right now. 

Pete is nobody special. He was born the kid of some moderately wealthy, suburban straight people, and he’s turned out to be a scrappy bi rocker, which really isn’t much, but he’s got this amazing boyfriend with milk skin and honey hair and a voice like liquid gold and a heart way too big for his own good. 

Pete is nobody special, but he’s about to be. He’s about to become more than anyone ever thought he could be. 

“Come on, Patrick,” Jennie says softly. “You’re doing really well! Give me more of these great pushes.” Patrick’s grip on Pete’s shoulders tightens, his face flushes red, and then something happens in a great surge of effort. “Well done! The head is born! Do you want to feel?” 

Breathless, and unable to speak, Patrick weakly takes an arm down between his legs, and Jennie guides his fingertips to the right place. Through the slightly cloudy water, Pete can see something smooth and round underneath those fingertips, it’s pale, just like Patrick, but with a thin covering of dark hair, and it suddenly dawns on him, that that’s his hair, on his baby’s head.

“You can feel, too, Pete,” Trisha mentions, almost whispering, as to avoid breaking the atmosphere in the room. 

“I can?” Pete responds, feeling a little dazed, like a child stepping into a sweet shop for the first time. Trisha nods, smiling. Then, Pete takes his left hand from where it had been resting on Patrick’s hip, and carefully places it right next to Patrick’s fingers. The baby’s skin and hair feel slimy, and he almost recoils, but, then again, there has never been such beauty in Pete’s life, so he feels like maybe he should bear with it. 

“Okay, now, Patrick, I want a big push for baby’s shoulders, you think you can do that for me?” Jennie snaps Pete back into reality a little, and Patrick gives a determined nod, bracing his hand on Pete’s shoulder once again. “Dad, I want you to help me guide baby out, so leave your hand exactly where it is.” Terrified, Pete makes fleeting eye contact with Trisha, and then he refocuses his attention on Patrick, who takes one large breath before he goes in for his push. 

It’s strange, feeling the head pushing down on his fingers. It happens slowly at first, but after Patrick gasps, and squeezes Pete’s shoulders harder than his build should allow for, everything happens so fucking quickly. 

Rosa (she’s definitely a girl, Pete notes) comes out in one great surge, followed by rather a lot of blood, which Pete tries not to focus on. Patrick is crying, reaching down and lifting his- their, Pete thinks- baby girl out of the water, into his chest, aided by Pete’s hand cupping her back. 

There is so much noise, Trisha crying, Patrick crying, and, most importantly, Rosa crying, but Pete can’t hear any of it. 

All he can focus on is those tiny toes and fingers, the leg and arm rolls, the mysteriously thick, cheese-like residue that covers her literally from head to toe. It’s then that Pete realises birth isn’t some serene, perfect picture; it’s messy. His baby girl isn’t scrubbed clean and pink-skinned, Patrick is sweating buckets, and the pool is filling with bloodied amniotic fluid from between his legs. 

But, Pete doesn’t mind. He really doesn’t mind. He’s a father now, and he suspects he’s going to have to get used to mess rather quickly. 

-

“Pete, wait,” Patrick whispers, sharply, if that’s possible, a hand shooting out to stop him from opening the front door to their apartment. This is the first time they’ve been left alone as a family since they became one. If they had listened closely enough, they could have heard Dale driving off in her cosy little car after dropping them off. Patrick locks his eyes on Pete’s eyes, glances down at the baby in the car seat he’s carrying, and then looks back up. “Don’t open the door,” he breathes, tightening his grip over the brass handle. 

“Babe, what’s wrong?” Pete asks worriedly, scanning his daughter’s sleeping form for signs of something to panic about first, and then looking to Patrick. His eyes are tired, he’s a little paler than usual, his hair is tangled, but this is no surprise to Pete. Rosa Caroline is only a few hours past a day old, and it would be ridiculous for anyone to expect Patrick, a first-time, teenage mother of thirty-something hours, to look any better than he does. In Pete’s eyes, he is Vogue cover-worthy, a stunning beauty, boyish face and baby weight included. 

“Nothing’s wrong, I just-“ Patrick gathers himself to say something big. “I don’t know what to do, Pete. As soon as you open that door, it gets real! We’re all alone, and Rosa-“ he nods towards their sleeping baby, tears in his eyes. “Is totally reliant on us. We’re idiots, Pete! The fact that I got pregnant this young is proof enough!”

“Well, yeah, but, we can do this, I promise, babe.” Pete places the hospital bag on the floor, and closes his hand over Patrick’s in a cute, romantic manner. “I promise,” he says, sounding so sure of himself. (Really, he’s also terrified, but he figures that they’ve survived way too much for him to ruin it all by having another freak out moment.) 

Patrick nods, slowly, remaining rather unconvinced, until- that is- something dawns on him. He and Pete have come such a long way already. They have struggled through Hurricane Jeanae, wearing oversized hoodies and chunky sneakers as their body armour, they have battled against the odds to allow themselves to end up together, they have fought biology itself, and they have survived. Patrick realises that it would be pretty pathetic for him to have survived all of that, only to let a little fear stop him from becoming the world’s fiercest teenage mother. 

“Okay,” he breathes shakily. He’s still scared, but he figures that every other new mom is too, teenage or otherwise. “You can open the door, now.”

 

-EPILOGUE-

“Dude, Patrick, are you okay in there? Did you just throw up again?” 

A strange sense of déjà vu washes over Patrick’s skin. Here he is, again, on his hands and knees in front of a toilet, weeping quietly. His head is spinning, his stomach is turning, and the very thought of heading back downstairs to the garden full of toddlers keeps making him physically sick. It’s hot outside, as one might expect on a late July, LA afternoon, and the twenty children (their parents are here, too) tiring themselves out on the hired bouncy castle are making an absolute racket. 

The thing is, Patrick loves George ever so dearly, and he’s really, really glad that his second birthday is going as well as it is, but he just wishes that he hadn’t spent most of the previous night in this position he currently finds himself, stress vomiting at regular intervals. At the time, Pete had sleepily promised that the nausea would dissipate as soon as the kids started having a good time, but they’ve been running rampage in the garden for three hours, now. For a while, Patrick thought Pete had been right, but then someone’s kid grazed their knee and he found himself hurrying into a shed to throw up into an empty plant pot, which, much to his dismay, had a wide hole in its base. 

Patrick will deal with that mess later, but, for now, he has to focus on not creating any more big messes. 

“Come on, dude, open up. You didn’t look so good downstairs,” Joe pleads, giving another firm rap on the door. Reluctantly, Patrick lifts his head enough to call him in, weak as his voice may be. Joe tries the handle, and pushes open the door. He’s met with the sight of Patrick, great, strong, resilient Patrick, on his knees in front of the toilet, tears streaming quietly down his cheeks. He shuts the door behind himself, and goes over to Patrick, sitting cross-legged to his left. “Hey,” he says, smiling sympathetically. 

“Hey,” Patrick rasps back. “Thanks for checking on me,” he adds, wiping away a tear. 

“Dude, you’re my best friend- well, aside from my wife and daughter, you know, but you get that,” Joe chuckles, in an attempt to lighten the mood. 

“Yeah,” Patrick responds distantly. 

“D’you know what’s wrong? Did you eat something bad? Is it a bug? Marie heard there was something going around at Rosa’s school, maybe-“

“No, no, I don’t think so. Rosa has the world’s worst immune system… If there was something going ‘round she’d have caught it, too. Pete and George aren’t sick, either…” He trails off, completely exhausted. 

“Sorry, dude, it sucks you’re feeling like shit.” Joe takes a short pause. “Seems like just yesterday you were still getting morning sickness from being pregnant with George. We had a hard time hiding that bump for the world’s greatest musical comeback, didn’t we?” He laughs, still hoping that humour will save the day. 

“Hey!” Patrick protests jokily, feebly. “He was a big baby! I didn’t think I’d be showing at eight weeks, but I couldn’t help it.” 

“Not saying you could, Pat.” Joe brushes a few bits of hair out from behind Patrick’s glasses. “Dude, Rosa’s gonna be twelve in, like, a week, George is two, I have Ruby now… Time flies, huh?” 

“Sure does,” Patrick actually laughs a little bit this time, and sits back on his heels as he begins to feel slightly less muddled inside. “I’ve done a whole lot of stupid shit in my life, but throwing a birthday party for twenty-something toddlers is the stupidest by far.”

“Yup!” Joe agrees wholeheartedly. “Definitely very stupid.”

See, Patrick has thrown birthday parties like this before. He held a smaller scale, yet similar party for Rosa’s third birthday, and he had a garden party for George’s first only a year ago. In eleven years and fifty-one weeks, Rosa has had a LOT of sleepovers, and she’s having another one in two weeks. Pete enjoys inviting people over, bands he wants to sign, guys from the label, random musical artists, ‘fashion’ designers, edgy photographer types, the kinds of people Patrick has no idea how he met, but accepts graciously into his toy-littered home anyway. (Admittedly, this grates on Patrick’s nerves when he spends hours putting their kids to bed, and is then expected to head downstairs and play trophy wife.)

Patrick knows how to throw a party, how to act as host, and he’s fucking good at it. He never gets ‘puke stressed’ (as Pete so lovingly calls it) over parties. ‘Puke stress’ is specially reserved for album drop days, leaving George with people that aren’t blood relatives for more than a few hours, award show dressing rooms when he isn’t allowed to pick his own suit, and literally anything when he’s pregnant. 

Patrick should not be as stressed as he is about his toddler’s party. Unless-

“Oh, fuck,” he murmurs, running a hand from his forehead through his hair. 

“What? You okay?” Joe asks, panicking slightly. “Please don’t puke again.”

“I’m fine, I’m fine, I just-“ A deep breath helps calm his nerves. “I need you to open that cabinet-“ he nods towards the protruding mirror above the sink. Joe obliges quietly. “On the top shelf, on the right, there are- Jesus, fuck, I-“

“Pregnancy tests?” Joe asks cautiously. Patrick only nods, wishing he were cuddled up in bed watching Netflix right now. “Dude, are you pregnant?”

“Yeah,” he sighs, accepting his fate. “Yeah, I am.”

“Wha- Did you already take a test? How do you-“

“I wouldn’t be asking you to get me a test if I’d already taken one, dipshit.”

“Yeah, but-“ Joe has a thousand metaphorical question marks hanging over his head. “You seem pretty confident! I don’t get how you just know!”

“Motherly instincts?”

Joe has heard these words a few times before. 

“Is this the bit where I’m supposed to tell you to fuck off, or…?” 

“Well, yeah, I guess so.” Patrick’s words echo around the room. “But, I know I’m right. Being pregnant feels like, like- I can’t ignore it, and it’s all Pete’s fault! He’s so annoying, I can tell when he should be paying rent on my body.”

“Rent?” 

“Of course. If Marie didn’t make you pay rent, she’s missing out big time. This shit is tough, dude.” 

“Right.” There is a pregnant pause. Joe frowns and prepares himself for what he has to say next. “You have got to tell Pete earlier this time.”

“Earlier than when?”

“Earlier than when you were, like, nineteen and let me eat away at that secret forever.”

“You know what?” Patrick sighs. “You’ve got a point there.”

-

Eight months later, Pete has taken up his stance, kneeling before the tub and gazing up lovingly at Patrick's exhausted face. They're eight hours in, Patrick's on the verge of pushing, and, honestly, Pete has to agree with him- this isn't any easier than the first or second time they've done this. In fact, it almost feels harder; bumbling around in the back of his brain is something incessantly reminding him of those other two children, sleeping soundly (he hopes) at their grandmother's house, a responsibility he has, which, right now, he feels he's neglecting. 

"I know, honey," Pete finally responds to Patrick's weary comment, his heart swelling. "I know, but you're doing so well. You're so strong, 'Trick, and I love you." 

"I feel sick," Patrick whines, shifting his weight from the top of his knees to the bottom. "I love you, too, but I feel like I'm gonna throw up right now." 

"Hey, hey," Pete chuckles softly, bringing a hand up to stroke Patrick's pale cheek. "Don't worry about it... You wanna get out of the pool for a bit?" 

"Fuck," Patrick mutters, lifting his head a little and opening his eyes a crack. There’s a sudden, great surging feeling that he can’t quite resist, and it all comes flooding back to him in an instant. He knows he has to push, and he can only pray that Pete is ready. He bears down, briefly, with the all of the strength he feels he can muster, which isn’t really very much at all, and waits for the contraction to pass. "I’m so fucking tired, Pete... What were we thinking? Babies are so much hard work!” He whines as Pete seems to clock that this, right now, is it. 

They labour away intensely (no pun intended) for a little while longer. Neither of them could have told you what time it was, or how long they laid there, as the pool water cooled slightly. It’s like being in some kind of time black hole, where minutes feel like seconds but hours feel like days, and sleep is the only thing that either of them crave. 

That all changes, though. The second Patrick feels his baby girl's skin on his fingertips, his entire world is complete. With Rosa and George, he never felt like this. He had felt grateful, and completely in love, of course, but he was still a little empty, somewhere deep inside, where it was hard to spot. 

This is different, though. 

She's not quite out yet, just her tiny, damp head nestled between Patrick's soft legs. There are still a few more pushes, Patrick is sure, just to get the shoulders out, so that she'll slip into life and existence with relative ease, but, oh, he already knows she's beautiful all over. He can't really see much, because he's still got most of a baby inside of him, and rather a lot of maternity fat he's eventually going to have to tackle, but he can feel the top of her head with his fingers, and it's magic. Pete is cupping the baby's head from the back, trying to guide her out like the midwife showed him a few weeks ago, and whispering words of encouragement, only just loud enough for Patrick to hear over the effort it's taking him to breathe this baby out. 

"That's it, 'Trick, you're doing great," Pete grins, and reassures Patrick as well as he can while the baby's head begins to press down on his fingers a little more. 

This baby is the final piece of their puzzle, this familial puzzle they began to build far, far too young. Since the moment Patrick realised he was pregnant with Rosa, he has been a mother above all else, serving his most important duty at all times of day and night, awake or asleep, tired or exhausted. He has been a mother without even realising it, staying up late and humming his babies to sleep while they were in utero, softly stroking his stomach through the rickety rumble of the old van through the night, and cradling his precious load through photo shoots, posing next to Pete on the red carpets. 

Their family was born from lust, one could say. It certainly wasn't love, not in the early days, it wasn't. It was born from the intense heat of two people, only kids themselves really (especially Pete). However, lust grew into love, and the first baby if Pete and Patrick's was born into a summer daze so much more than a fling. That family moulded itself into devotion, next; they began to fully submit to each other, offering up all each one could give to make the other happy. 

George came from a kind of organised passion. A rigid, scheduled sort of fun that took place everywhere and anywhere it could. They learned to make love in extreme quiet (an impressive skill for such a set of lungs as Patrick's), whenever the time was right, tucked away in the secret corners of maze-like venues, or nestled into a hotel bed while Nanny Trisha took Rosa for ice cream with a knowing smile. They knew what they were doing, of course; there was no air of accidence about George, because it was Patrick that begged to be filled out, both physically and spiritually, with a child, and Pete that longed to re-live that drug-like newborn haze Rosa had brought with her. 

And, so, when baby’s tiny, perfect body finally makes an appearance between those legendary Chicago thighs, there is a wave-like feeling of relief, crashing over them, because they know that she is just another blank canvas of a soul waiting to be decorated with the music of their colourful family life. She does not have a name, but she has a heart, thumping away under her skin against Patrick’s chest, and she has a sister, a brother, a mother and a father all loving her endlessly. She has a home in LA, another in Chicago, of course, and, somehow, in some roundabout way, another in Ohio, the place in which her family began, however accidental it may have been.


End file.
